


A Study In Cages

by OfWilsonDreams



Series: Cages [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Cages, Collars, Episode: s01e01 A Study in Pink, Episode: s01e02 The Blind Banker, Eventual Johnlock, Gen, John Whump, Laundry, Master/Slave, Non-Sexual Slavery, Oblivious Sherlock, PTSD John, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Public Nudity, Sherlock Plays the Violin, Tea, Terrified John, at least non-sexual so far but probably not later, eyeballs do not belong in the microwave, is Sherlock a sociopath, references to the Princess Bride because John Watson is a smart cookie and Sherlock is an idiot, riding-crop, seriously there's quite a lot about dirty laundry, severed feet should not be kept in a domestic freezer, sock index, the finding of unspecified body parts in the fridge is not a good experience, why is sock index not a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 22:34:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfWilsonDreams/pseuds/OfWilsonDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of Sherlock Holmes's previous slaves have died. He's been banned for life from owning more. So Mycroft Holmes steps in, and gifts his younger brother with an untrained slave who has no idea how to behave, an ex-soldier enslaved for debt... who finds life as Sherlock Holmes' property a bit different from what he was expecting. Not exactly slash yet but might head that way....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A study in taxi-drivers

Dreams about Afghanistan are always bad. Waking up from a bad dream in a cage is even worse. Naked, in a cage, with a collar round his neck.

_Please God, let me die._

There is neither day nor night in this place. People move between the cages, taking the slaves out and doing things to them. John thought he'd been here about twenty-four hours, but he realised with soul-crushing despair that he is meant not to be sure, that soon he will not be sure at all, and soon after that he will not be sure of anything. The point of this place is to inflict soul-crushing despair. Slaves don't need souls.

_They won't let me die._

His limp is psychosomatic. In the military hospital, when he was still a soldier, before this, they ran all the tests available and could only conclude it had no physical cause. His shoulder has healed, leaving him only with with a tremor in his left hand that will keep him from being a surgeon, and shellshock that will keep him from being a soldier, and huge debts that kept him from being a free man once the military had to let go of him.

The cage is long enough that John can stretch out in it. The floor of the cage is stainless steel. At intervals, probably about once every six hours, a half-litre bottle of distilled water is fitted into a funnel between the bars and he can drink it. He has not tried to refuse the water, or the food, which is tipped into a kind of trough at the end of the cage, because he's seen what happens to slaves who do refuse it.

There are about a hundred and forty people in the room, the majority of them naked in cages. The people who are wearing clothes are all wearing the same clothes: a pale blue coveral that covers them head to foot and includes gloves. Their faces are uncovered but they all have the same expression. They talk to each other, occasionally, but they never speak to the naked people in cages at all. 

When something new happens, everyone looks.

A very tall man in a business suit walking down the row of cages, accompanied by three other people, none of them wearing the blue overals and none of them taking any interest in the naked people in the cages.

John watched him. All four of them are wearing suits: the man stands out both because of his height and because his suit is clearly the most expensive, and because although the other three aren't looking at the cages, the tallest man has eyes that seem to see everything. John looked back as the man glanced into his cage, seeing a sharp, angular face with a beaky nose and almost colorless eyes, scanning the cage and himself.

They stopped by a cage near the far end. The woman in the cage is extracted by two of the handlers: the little group of suits stood and watched as she is made to stand upright and measured, made to kneel and weighed, made to walk and turn and run. As all the slaves at that end of the room do, she obeyed quietly and without protest.

"Yes," the tallest man says, his voice loud and clear and carrying, "she'll do. I want another one." He turned on his heel, and walked back down the row of cages. His entourage followed. When he stopped, he was right outside John's cage. "This one," he said, and pointed, to make his meaning quite clear.

John had never been bought before nor ever bought a slave, but he's pretty sure this isn't how this is supposed to go. He and the other slave are extracted from their cages a few minutes later by the usual handlers. They're hosed down, the plastic collar and cuffs removed, a permanent metal collar fixed on, and delivered, still naked, to a parking garage. 

It's cold in the garage and John still can't walk properly. He lurches, pressing his hand against his leg, feeling the leash on his collar tug and sway. The other slave walks perfectly. The tall man is standing by himself, leaning on his brolly, with an incongruous office chair planted in front of him.

"Take her to my car," the tall man said. "John."

No one has addressed John by name since the slave administration team came to collect him from the military hospital. For a disconcerting moment he wondered if the tall man was talking to him or to someone else.

The tall man is smiling. Not a friendly smile. His voice is cold and smooth. "Your leg must be hurting you. Sit down." He pointed to the chair with his umbrella.

John lurched to the chair. Grasped the back. Tried to keep it from moving. He hasn't sat in a chair since... however long it's been since he was discharged from the army hospital. He stretched his legs out in front of him. The relief from immediate pain was great.

The tall man eyed him. "You don't seem very afraid."

John swallowed. He is naked, in a parking garage, with a metal collar welded round his neck. The tall man is now his owner. He can't think of any way this can end well. But it never could end well. And at least the end is now in sight. He's out of the cage. 

"You don't seem very frightening," he offered.

A hesitation, just a brief one, and the tall man laughed. His laugh is as cold and as smooth as his voice.

"Yes. The bravery of the soldier. Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don't you think?"

John said nothing. He leaned back in the chair and looked the man in the eye. Naked and collared and owned, but he didn't have to say yes to that.

"I've bought you as a gift," the tall man said, after another moment's silent assessment. "Or rather, a loan. You're a soldier. You had been in that cage for - how long, would you estimate?"

"I don't know," John said. "About twenty-four hours."

"Close," the man said. He sounded condescendingly delighted. "Very close, John. You were there for twenty-five hours and thirty minutes. That's very impressive." He doesn't sound impressed. "Of course most slaves stay in those cages for much longer, to teach them good habits, obedience, and so forth." He stared at John. His voice was now completely cold. "I do hope you're intelligent enough to understand that if you displease me, back you go."

John nodded. "Understood, sir." He wondered if he should say "master". He swallowed.

"Don't worry so about these little details," the tall man said, almost fondly, still coldly. "You belong to me and you will obey me completely. That's all that need concern you. You were enslaved for debt - a substantial sum, which came due, of course, when you were invalided out of the army. You will be on loan to my brother. You will provide me with information on a regular basis. In exchange for each report, a meaningful sum of money will be paid down against your debt. You will obey my brother, in all respects as if he were your owner, except one: regardless of any instructions he gives you about his own privacy, you will tell me what he's up to."

"Yes," John said. "Sir." He nodded.

"But I would prefer for various reasons that my concern go unmentioned. We have what you might call a difficult relationship. If my brother becomes aware that you are reporting on him to me, he may react badly, and I'm sure you realize that would be a shame."

"Yes. Sir."

The other slave is already kneeling on the floor of the car. A handler has fastened the leash, attached to her collar, to a metal loop in the floor. The tall man points to a spot on the floor next to her, and John muttered "I can't kneel."

"Your limp is psychosomatic," the tall man said. "You can kneel, John, and you will. In silence. You won't speak until I instruct you to do so."

Kneeling hurt.

Out of the corner of his eye, John could watch the other slave. She's in her late twenties, fair hair clipped as short as his. She is pale as milk. Her eyes are cast down. Her hands are clasped behind her back. Her face is expressionless. Her nakedness isn't sexy: she just looks exposed.

Two of the tall man's entourage had stayed behind. The third one, the woman in the almost-as-expensive suit, has been looking at her Blackberry. She glances at the tall man once or twice. The two naked slaves kneeling in front of her might as well be invisible. The tall man spent the car journey staring at both of them, but mostly at John.

It's too hard to keep his balance in a moving car, and his right leg hurt too much. When the car went round a corner he put his hands on the floor and the tall man said "Yes, on all fours. Yes, up on to your knees. Like a dog, John. Good boy."

It's easier to keep his balance like this but just as painful and a lot more humiliating. John stared down at the floor of the car, the immaculate carpet, his owner's shiny, expensive shoes. He was in a cage only a couple of hours ago, and this is better. Surely this is better.

The car stopped. The door opened. The woman with the Blackberry got out. There is a fresh cold draft against his skin. After a moment, a plastic carrier bag landed on the floor in front of him with a soft thump. Two shoes fall out of it. Black sneakers. The tall man reaches down and unhooked the leash for John's collar, throwing the end to him.

"Don't get up," the tall man said. "Clothe yourself."

Surprised, John looked up. The tall man favored him with another of those cold smooth smiles.

"Don't make me repeat an order, so early in our relationship. I can assure you, John, that will always be most unwise."

The clothes are nothing special - they mostly don't even look new. At the bottom of the bag there is a pack of boxer shorts and another pack of socks. There is a button-down shirt in a kind of checker pattern and a thin black jacket and pants and a pale brown knitted sweater. John felt vaguely surprised. All the slaves he'd ever noticed in his past life had always seemed to be wearing either some kind of uniform, or occasionally - the kind of slaves that belonged to a man like this - something so expensive and fragile it decorated rather than clothed the slave. But then none of those slaves ever looked anything like John. 

The woman kneeling next to him would suit that kind of decoration. But there aren't any clothes for her.

It's not easy getting dressed on the floor, especially keeping his limbs tucked in so as not to touch the man who owned him or the slave kneeling next to him. But it feels amazing to be wearing clothes again. They fit. Even the shoes fit perfectly.

"You," the tall man says, once John has dressed. He pointed with his brolly: now he's talking to the other slave now. She looked up at him. There is nothing on her face.

"I bought you to loan to my brother," the tall man said. "Your service to him will be measured in hours, but is likely to be quite painful. This is not punishment." He gestured with his other hand, and she unhooked the leash from the ring in the floor and passed it to him. He nodded, and got out of the car. She followed him. Still naked. 

The woman was standing by the car door. She leaned in and took hold of his leash and tugged. "Walk ahead of me," she said. "Over there."

Out of the car, John is standing, fully clothed, on a London street, with the damp air fresh against his face, and it smelled wonderful. He drew in one deep breath and then the woman was pushing him deliberately towards an open door across the street. The tall man and the naked slave are going up a flight of stairs.

It's difficult to climb even a short flight of stairs, even with a sturdy bannister for support. At the top of the stairs there is a new owner, and John's stomach is crawling. His leg hurt worse with each step. The woman right behind him lets him take his time, but when he stops for a moment to catch his breath she prods him onward.

Upstairs a door opens, brighter light shining down on the stairs, and the tall man and the slave disappear from sight. John got to the top of the stairs breathless and sweating, and lurched into the room. 

The man now holding the naked woman's leash, the man who is presumably the brother to whom she and John are being "loaned", is probably the most beautiful man John's ever seen.

He's tall. And dark-haired, and has impossibly chiseled cheekbones and a gorgeous mouth and pale blue eyes. Like the tall man, his eyes seem to see everything.

"She's the correct height, weight, and skin tone," the brother said. In him, the smooth cold tones sound almost whiny, rather sulky. "She'll do. You can go now."

The tall man swept across the room and sat down on a battered sofa. "I'll wait. Anthea will assist."

The brother scowled. "I don't _need_ an assistant."

"You need photographs," the tall man said. "At five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, and half an hour. And a further set six hours later."

The brother went on scowling. "They need to be timed precisely."

"Anthea is an excellent timekeeper. She will take the photographs, precisely as you require. Finish what you have to do and we'll talk."

"We don't need to talk." The brother jerked on the leash and turns away. For the first time John notices what he's holding in his other hand. A riding crop. His stomach lurches again.

The woman with the Blackberry - Anthea - dropped John's leash and followed the brother. Across the room, through a door. John stood still. The room seemed to be swaying a bit. 

"John," the tall man said. He gestured, when he'd got John's attention. "Come here." He pointed at the armchair facing the sofa. "Sit down. Don't move."

The room is mid-Victorian, high dusty cornices, an ancient flock wallpaper. Shelves of books. Papers stacked on the floor. At the back of the room there is a kind of primitive chemical laboratory - John can see the glassware and Bunsen burners. Incongruously, there is also a modern fridge-freezer and a microwave. The armchair is old and comfortable and battered. John sat, bolt upright, trying not to look as if he was looking round the room.

"You can look around," the tall man said. John's eyes returned, swiftly, to his owner's face. The tall man glanced round the room himself, and smiled at John, the same cold smooth look of earlier. "Dear me, what a mess. If my brother doesn't assign you to any other task, you can tidy up."

Then, from the other room, there is the sound of a riding-crop hitting flesh and a cry of pain.

"Don't move, John," the tall man repeated. His cold eyes assess John, boring into his skull. "Sit quite still. Don't make me repeat an order." 

The sound of another blow, another sound of pain. 

"My brother doesn't care to be interrupted when he's at work." The tall man's voice curls in silky contempt round the word. 

_"I bought you to loan to my brother. Your service to him will be measured in hours, but is likely to be quite painful. This is not punishment."_

John sat still. _Work._ Another thud of crop hitting meat, another weeping cry of pain. The tall man, he supposed, had at least warned the woman what she was in for. If he hadn't warned John, maybe he thought his brother wouldn't beat a male slave. Or not an unattractive one.

A fourth time. Thud, cry. John rubbed his face with his hands. He didn't want to look up and see the tall man watching him. Slaves could be beaten. Slaves could be beaten so badly they needed medical help. Owners had the right to punish slaves for misbehavior, to make them behave properly. They weren't supposed to beat a slave just for enjoyment. 

Another thud, another sob of agony. A doctor couldn't intervene: if he made a report of abuse, the owner might get a fine for overdoing it, but not unless the slave was beaten hard enough to do permanent damage. A doctor who did that too often, unless the owner was likely to kill their slave, was going to get a rap over the knuckles for trying to interfere in the owner's right to discipline their slave.

The slave was keening with pain. The next blow dragged an exhausted cry out of her. He'd known he might be beaten, he'd steeled himself for that. He hadn't steeled himself against having to sit still, listening to a woman being hurt for fun, and _unable to stop it_. 

He shifted in his seat, looked over at the door, heard a seventh and eighth _whack, whack_ of the crop and the woman sobbed and screamed at the same time. John saw the tall man's eyes on him, the chill speculation in that stare. If John moved, if he fought, if he protested, he would go back to the cage. He didn't want to go back to the cage. He couldn't stop the brother, he couldn't testify against the brother - 

John doesn't move. He folds his hands in his lap and sits staring back at his owner. He feels grey and cold inside. He's a slave. 

The brother has stopped hitting the woman. 

The other slave is crying. John can hear she's trying not to. The brother comes out of the room with his riding crop. The one he's just used. John looks down at his folded hands. He wants to punch the brother in the face. He can see himself doing it. He can see himself going back in the cage, beaten and bleeding. There were other slaves in the cages who had been bruised from beatings when they'd resisted. Resistance had done no good. There were slaves he'd seen as a doctor, burned and scarred and bruised from what their owners had done to them. And they had simply been handed back to their owners. John stares down at his hands.

"What do you want, Mycroft?" the brother asked. He sounded tired. 

"Must I state the obvious?" The tall man sounds lazily contemptuous. "Get up, John."

Briefly, John's leg doesn't seem to hurt at all. He pushed himself to his feet.

"Oh," the brother says, and looks at John for an instant. Then his eyes fix on the tall man. "I don't want him."

"You need a slave. You don't want to upset Mummy."

"I don't _need_ a slave, especially not an army reject."

"Sherlock," the tall man says. He swept a hand round the room. The brother looked round, as if taking in for the first time the mess everywhere. "You would have bought a replacement weeks ago if not for your... little difficulty. This replacement resolves everything. His ownership papers are in my name, but he'll be under your full control. I shan't interfere."

"Of course you'll interfere, you always interfere," the brother said. He was looking at John again. His eyes were very cold and intent.

"What do you make of him, Sherlock?"

"Ex-army. Damaged."

"Obvious," the tall man said.

The brother walked to the armchair, glanced again at John, and sat down, steepling his fingers under his chin. "Cards or horses?" he asked. The tall man didn't answer. After a moment, John looked at the brother. He took an involuntary step back, wanting to hit him so much. The brother's eyes widened.

"What did you gamble on, cards or horses?" he repeated.

"Horses..." John swallowed.

"Dull," the brother said, dismissively. "So, he's an ex-soldier, an officer, probably a captain; joined the army because he was getting scared of his gambling addiction, quite rightly since he's ended up enslaved for debt. No immediate family. Invalided home from Iraq or Afghanistan a few weeks ago, spent some time in an army hospital, transferred to slaves administration no more than three days ago - "

"Two days ago," the tall man interrupted.

"Fast work, Mycroft," the brother said. "Recently spent about twenty-four hours in a cage. His limp is psychosomatic. He's probably had some medical training, too, oh, that's interesting."

"Something else that may interest you, Sherlock," the tall man said. "John, show us your hand. Your left hand."

John's hands were at his sides. He moved them instinctively, behind his back.

"Your hand, John," the tall man said. His brother was watching, looking interested. After a moment, John held up his left hand.

"John is a fully-qualified doctor," the tall man said. "He trained as a trauma surgeon. He now has an intermittent tremor in his left hand, which his army therapist thought was post-traumatic stress disorder, caused by memories of his military service. But he's under stress right now and look, his hand is perfectly steady."

The brother stood up and reached for John's hand.

"Don't - " John said, involuntarily.

"Oh, that's clever," the brother said. He stared at John's hand from close up, without touching it, and sat down again, staring at the tall man. "That's clever."

"Thank you, Sherlock," the tall man said. "I shall leave this with you, then."

The tension in the room suddenly ramped up. The brother's eyes went wide, his chin lifted, he looked angry and disgusted. "I don't want him." 

"Yes, you do," the tall man said. "Always so aggressive. This petty feud between us is simply childish."

John stood still. They didn't seem to be looking at him any more, so he dropped his hand. His leg hurt. He could hear - he had heard through all their conversation - the painful muffled weeping of the beaten slave in the other room.

Neither man was looking at him. They no longer seem to be quite looking at each other, either.

After a few minutes, the tall man said "John, I should make one thing clear to you. You are ordered to defend yourself against attack."

"I would have told him that," the brother said.

"Of course you would," the tall man said. "If anyone - apart from Sherlock, of course - approaches you with intent to harm or damage you, you will take appropriate action to defend yourself. That is an order. You can sit down now."

John swallowed. The brother is still holding that bloody riding crop, and it is literally bloody now he's used it to whip the other slave, John can see the marks. He sat down on the carpet, which has clearly not been cleaned in a while.

After what seems like a very long time, the assistant comes out of the room, with the slave moving awkwardly behind her like a beaten dog. There are marks on her shoulders and buttocks. The assistant doesn't look up. She's clicking her Blackberry. 

"I've emailed the photos to your address on the website," she said.

The brother nodded. He didn't say thanks. 

"The Science of Deduction," the tall man says, his cold smooth voice wrapping himself around the words. "We must be going, Sherlock. Do take care of John. We wouldn't want a repetition of those other little incidents, would we?"

"Not my fault," the brother snaps.

"Of course not," the tall man said. He rose to his feet. "Thank you, Anthea." 

"Go away, and take that - " the brother's hand jerked out to point at John " - with you."

"The man's voice never changed tone. He continued, sub-acid, pleasant, and very certain. "You'll need to move out. This place is hardly suitable. I'll make all the arrangements. Good night, Sherlock."

The brother didn't look at him: he walked over to the window and looked down for a minute or two, as if to see the car move away. Then he pulled out a phone. He typed, a short message, clicked send.

The brother's gaze moved from the phone to John. He stared at John for a few seconds, his face expressionless. Then he turned and went into the room where he had beaten the woman, and the door closed. He hadn't said a word.

John sat still. The walls were thin: he could hear movements within that other room, even with the door closed. The brother - Sherlock - his owner - could hear him. John did not want to attract his attention.

Take that with you.

John stared across the room. He supposed as a slave he constituted a "that". An unwanted gift.

The ceiling light was on. It was dark outside. John had no idea what the time was: he couldn't see a clock. In the cages, there had been no darkness. The room was a pit - there were papers, books, cardboard boxes, used mugs, everywhere. He had slept in a cage on a smooth easily-hosed-down plastic floor, some time ago - he had no idea how long it had been. Mycroft said he had been in the cage for over 24 hours, but there had been hours before that of waiting, being collared, having legal formalities read over him as the military let go of him and the civil administration claimed him. Being cleaned, a process as thorough as humiliating.

It had been just after eight o'clock on Tuesday morning when he had last seen a clock. Suppose it had taken ten hours or so to process him - he'd been fed once during that time, if that meant anything. That felt about right. Then he'd gone into the cage at six in the evening. That meant Mycroft had got him out of the cage at about seven on Wednesday evening. And then there had been travelling to get here, and time spent listening to Mycroft's brother beat the woman provided to him.

Couldn't be much earlier than nine o'clock Wednesday evening. Almost certainly wasn't after midnight yet.

The brother's disappearance to the other room was probably because he wanted to wank off than because he was going to sleep. But there was dead silence from the room.

John waited, shifting quietly from a seated position to a crouch from which he could get up easily. There went on being dead silence.

The brother _could_ be the world's quietest wanker. But John found he wasn't really surprised when the door snaps open again and the brother is standing in the doorway, looking right at him.

John stared back. The brother looked angry and disgusted. "You can use that blanket," he said. He pointed. There was a blanket over the back of the sofa. It looked like an orange shock blanket. Then, quickly, he stepped between John and the couch to pick something up. He disappeared back into the other room holding it carefully in his arms. It looked like a violin.

He could hear when the brother started to play, only a minute or so later. John got to his feet, conscious at first only of relief - he could move around, help himself to a drink of water, look for a bathroom, under the sound of the music.

The bathroom was small and stuffy, but John felt obscurely better inside with the door closed and the light switched on. From the contents of the bathroom cabinet, John learned the brother was vain about his hair, shaved with a straight razor, and kept a complete set of human teeth in a jar on the shelf beside the toothbrush and toothpaste. The teeth looked as if they had been removed intact, roots and all, and the glass jar was full of a clear liquid, probably a preservative. London was full of hospitals: medical students would do more gruesome things than that for a prank. In the bright light of the small room, alone for the first time in days, John almost felt as if he were moving in to a new shared apartment. There were spare toothbrushes: he borrowed one to clean his teeth, rinsed his mouth, drank some more water, and wondered if he risked having a shower.

There was a full-length mirror on the door. John stared. His hair had been clipped shorter even than the army would do it: round his neck, copper-coloured, shining against his skin, a slave collar. He put his hands to it, touching the metal against his skin. This was permanent. He was the tall man's property, he was the brother's property, he was _owned_.

And he didn't have the least idea even what he was supposed to do. Report on the brother to the tall man. Clean the apartment. That would be a job and a half in itself. He couldn't do any of that tonight. He'd catch a nap on the chair and figure out the rest tomorrow morning.

The music had played on while he was in the bathroom - surprisingly good, he realised - but outside in the living room it was loud enough to keep him awake. And good, yes: the violin sobbed and sang, filling the room. John would have taken for granted a stereo was playing, but sometimes the music stopped and began again: not as a CD would pause but as a human player would. The brother was a professional violinist. With medical student friends.

John had forgotten his limp for a moment, but it clawed its way back fullforce as he tried to get silently across to the sofa, rescue the blanket, and tuck himself under it on the chair. He was tempted to sleep on the sofa, but no one had given him permission to use it. Mycroft had given him permission to use the chair. So that should be OK. And he would be awake before the brother: on past experience, John knew it to be impossible to get a decent night's sleep curled up on a chair. After a bit of thought, John took his shoes off and put them handy for the morning. He lay still, listening to the violin. The brother went on playing, nothing John recognised, but he didn't expect to. This was better than the cage.

He kicked the shoes provided off, tucked them under the chair to be out of sight, and had curled up awkwardly - his leg was cramping - when the brother started to play something unbearable. John tucked the blanket over his ears, but he could still hear it. He wasn't very musical, but he was sure this wasn't a classical composition or in any mode he recognised. Unbearable. It tore at him, going on, and on, and on. 

Then suddenly, it broke off, with a screech like a tormented cat. 

There was silence for a moment or two.

And then the music began again. 

John stayed in the chair. They weren't flatmates, he reminded himself, hugging the blanket to himself, ducking his head. They weren't even strangers sharing the same quarters. He was a slave. Complaining about the noise would mean he'd get beaten like that other slave and handed back to Mycroft, who'd put him back in the cage.

The screech of torment interrupting the music happened twice or three times more. John was so tired he lost track after a while. He buried his head in his arms, trying to cut out the music. He wanted to be able to sleep. He still thought, as far as his conscious mind could think, that he would rather this than the cage.

When John woke, he hardly knew where he was. He was curled in an ancient armchair, the dusty fabric soft against his face. He was wrapped in a blanket that smelled of cigarette smoke and formaldehyde. He was fully dressed. He was hungry. He had a collar round his neck. He wasn't a soldier any more. He wasn't anything any more. He felt as if someone was staring at him, and turned his head. The tall pale brother was standing in the doorway, looking at him dispassionately but very intently. John hunched under the blanket, looking back at him, wondering if he should kneel, wondering if he was about to get orders for the day, wondering - the cold quality of the gaze made him feel as if he was being dissected - whether he should say something, do something - 

The brother pulled his coat on, wrapped a scarf round his neck, and walked out. John hesitated for hardly a moment. The brother might have gone for coffee, for a breakfast roll, for the morning newspaper. He could be back in a few minutes. John found the bathroom, used the toilet, drank from the tap, checked his face in the mirror - he was beginning to show a light beard - and went back to the armchair. He folded the blanket very neatly and stood and waited. 

Outside, the sound of London's daytime traffic rose like a cacophonic symphony. John waited, his leg aching, for a count of five minutes, then another five. This was the first time he had been entirely by himself since... well, since the last time he'd lived in London, probably. He stood still. The room was covered with the debris of a student: textbooks of forensic medicine, old newspapers, stale plates. On the mantelpiece there was a very realistic model of a skull. John waited. When he thought he could be sure the brother had gone for the day and wouldn't be back til after work, he felt himself relax. 

The flat was a mess. He had no orders from the brother, but the man who'd bought him said the place could do with a clean-up. John was hungry. 

There must be a clock somewhere: he needed to know when the brother would be coming back. There must be some food in the kitchen. 

The kitchen table was scarred with chemical spills and lines like knife-cuts. The counter was cluttered with lab equipment. There was no food in evidence - there was a used coffee jar, but the white powder was definitely not coffee creamer or sugar: there was no tea: there were not even the usual remnants of cans and packets that most people acquired. Maybe the brother took all his meals out. 

There were also no cleaning supplies. This didn't altogether surprise John: it was hard to imagine the brother ever doing anything so mundane as cleaning. Which meant the fridge-freezer lurking in the corner of the kitchen probably stank. With unwelcome memories of other fridges in student residency, John opened the door. The light failed to come on. The fridge wasn't empty. There was, on the front shelf, a loaf of bread in a plastic bag. The fridge was a terrible place to store bread, it went stale and moldy faster, but lots of people didn't know that. John swallowed hunger saliva, envisaging sandwiches. Well, toast. Breakfast. 

Aside from the bread, the fridge was empty otherwise, apart from some flasks of things that probably constitutedexperiments. There was a severed foot in the freezer.

John jams his hand against his mouth. He swallows. The foot is turned upside down, there are callouses on toes and heel which are being removed slice by slice - and a notebook next to it on which dates and times are being recorded. He stares down at his own feet. He thinks about running.

The foot is in the top drawer. The next drawer down is empty. At the bottom of the freezer there are three bags of frozen peas that look as if they've been defrosted a few times and not eaten. Used as ice-packs, probably.

There was nothing else to eat in the fridge, but it wasn't exactly empty: the things floating in the glass jars - looked like body parts. Were body parts. John swallowed and closed the fridge and stood looking at it, realising with a cold part of his mind that he was dead. Slavery was legal death, but this wasn't just slavery: he'd been given to a man who cut people up and put them in the fridge. In jars. Some of the things the man had said last night to his brother came back to him. Some of them made more sense now. 

John glanced around the room again. He went over to the mantelpiece and touched the skull. It was real bone. The jaw had been wired by an amateur, not by a professional. Probably by the brother.

He went to the other door, looked in: the brother's bedroom. A quick, unobtrusive search found no money, nothing he could use to make an escape. He'd get picked up as a runaway slave but - The worst part wasn't even the thought of being killed and dissected. His life was over. He'd accepted that. The brother might not kill him. The man evidently had warned him off that. The brother might bring others back here, and kill them, and cut them up, and stick the parts into the fridge, and expect John to watch - expect John to help - John got to the bathroom before he threw up, painful retchings from an empty stomach.

There was nothing else in the kitchen that's edible. The laboratory is a kitchen. It's just that it's so crammed with scientific equipment there's not a lot of room for anything else.

There is a bag of liquid in the microwave, with eyeballs swimming in it.

There was a patch of sunlight on the carpet. The carpet was a dusty, faded blue. John sat down in the sunlight. It was warm. He sat still, and practiced breathing, the way his therapist had told him would help with panic attacks. He wanted to be back in Afghanistan. He wanted to be a soldier again. 

He didn't want to go back to the cage.

After a while - the sunlight had crossed the room, so hours had passed - John realised he was hungry.

The bread in the fridge had looked like ordinary sliced wholemeal bread, still in the printed supermarket bag it was bought in. There was literally nothing else in the apartment to eat, except the toothpaste in the bathroom. John had gone without food for 24 hours before this, more than once, but never when he had no idea when he might get to eat again. He didn't look at the other contents of the fridge when he opened the door again. He took three slices of bread from the middle of the loaf and replaced the bag in the fridge.

The bread looked okay. Not moldy, a bit stale, smooth supermarket mass-baked stuff.

The toaster was broken. John looked at the oven and didn't even want to think about what would happen if he tried to use it. He used the toothglass in the bathroom to drink from. All of the cups in the kitchen looked fouled. 

He chewed the first mouthful of bread for a long time. It didn't taste strange, or burn his mouth, or feel odd going down. He drank water. He waited.

The bread didn't seem to be poisoned. Very slowly, making each slice last a long time, he made a meal, with plenty of cold water. London mains water.

Then he set to and tried to clean, because there was nothing else to do. There were no cleaning materials: the only hot water was lukewarm from the tap. There was something lodged in the kettle that John didn't want to look at too closely. He was probably not achieving more than moving dust around and stacking things up in piles, but if he sat and did nothing but think about being trapped here with a man who cut pieces off people he was going to go mad.

There were old newspapers and piles of books and bits and pieces - hair ribbons, combs, a cracked old Nokia phone (that didn't work: John tried) - that might have been awful souvenirs.

The books were mostly criminology, though there was a scattering of other material, including a large proportion of thrillers and potboilers about gruesome crimes "Based On A True Story". There were chemistry textbooks and folders of papers, notes on crimes and chemistry and records of experiments on body parts.

There were surprisingly few cigarette ends, but there were plenty of spent nicotine patches by the sofa. John caught himself giggling. Serial killer. Giving up smoking. Just what the doctor ordered. He was still stacking up things when the door opened without a knock, and two men came in. Both in their forties, wearing grey suits and brown coats.

"What are you doing in here?" the first man into the room demanded. "Who are you?"

John stood up. Neither man was armed, both were taller than him, they both looked soft in the belly, desk jobs, he could take them out - But they'd entered using a key. They might have a right to be here.

"Who are you?" he demanded, putting military brusqueness into his voice. He sounded hoarse and out of practice.

"I own this place," the first man snapped. "I've had complaints from other tenants. Is he subletting?" He was looking round, seeing something to frown at everywhere. The other man had kept staring at John.

The second man said, in a distinctly posh voice, "Open up your shirt collar, boy."

"What?" The first man's attention turned back to John. "He's got a slave? You his property, boy? Answer me!"

John opened his mouth. He supposed "It's complicated" was the wrong answer. What he needed to say was "There are bits of human bodies in the fridge and the microwave, get me out of here!" Both men were staring at him. He hadn't really tried to conceal the collar.

"Goddammit, this is too much," the first man said. "Get down on your knees, boy, hands behind your back, show some manners if Sherlock bloody Holmes hasn't taught you any."

The second man came across the room as John was moving to kneel. He was looking John over with an air of puzzled inquiry. He hit John across his ears, forehand and backhand. "Shut up," he said, and turned back to the first man. "Well, quite apart from the state of this place, and the noise, you've got cause to evict him if he moved a slave in without getting your permission."

"Great," the first man said, and pulled out his phone. He was speaking on the phone as he walked out, and the second man followed him.

John didn't get up from his knees. He crawled across to a cleared patch of carpet by the wall and folded himself up there, his elbows on his knees, his hands planted in his hair, his back firmly pressed against the wall. He was still sitting there, well after the sun had gone down, when the brother came back. 

The brother was carrying a thin take-out bag of something that smelled good. He dropped it on to the coffee table. "Oh, sit up," the brother said. 

John uncurled himself. 

"You don't seem to have done much today," the brother said. "Apart from get me evicted."

John swallowed. 

"You didn't run away, either," the brother said, still eyeing him. "Scared of Mycroft?" 

John swallowed again. He was trying to fathom out a reply, but the brother turned away. "Eat that, if you're hungry," he said. "Don't disturb me." He was still wearing his coat and scarf when he went into his bedroom and shut the door.

The food in the bag was a take-out carton with some kind of spicy Chinese food. It tasted amazing and there wasn't nearly enough of it. John ate it with his fingers and washed his hands and drank more water and curled up under the bright orange blanket in the armchair, and hoped there wouldn't be any loud music tonight.

The bright chattering of gunfire filled his dreams. The spark entering him was a bullet but it felt like violin music. John went down in the Afghan sun with his shoulder full of monstrous pain and the sunlight dazzling in his eyes. He woke with his face full of tears and his shoulder didn't hurt and there was a chewing pain in his leg and a serial killer standing over him, saying something peevish in a deep voice that John didn't understand.

Breathing like a locomotive helped, the therapist had taught him. John breathed, struggling not to cry, feeling the collar round his throat and smelling cigarette smoke and formaldehyde and the serial killer's sleep-sweat. He was dead, he was dead, and he couldn't get out. 

When his breathing had calmed, the brother was still standing there. 

"You're afraid of me," the brother said. He sounded interested. "You weren't afraid of me this morning. What did the landlord tell you?"

John wasn't conscious of looking at the fridge-freezer. In fact, he'd tried not to. But the brother, instead of waiting for an answer, glanced round and looked directly at it, then at the microwave, and then grinned. A very cold, practiced smile.

"You found my experiments," he said.

John didn't answer. He swallowed, and tried not to look at the brother, and tried not to look away. 

"Put your shoes on," the brother said. He turned away and strolled over to the kitchen. He took a coolbox out from one of the cupboards. He called over his shoulder, "I have to return these to Barts anyway. You might as well be introduced."

John had tucked the shoes under the chair. He fished them out and slid them on. His fingers felt uncertain on the laces. The brother was throwing body parts into the coolbox: the foot, the bag of eyeballs, pieces from the fridge. Return these to Barts. Barts. As in _hospital_ Barts. As in stolen from the morgue. Like every medical student, John had known some who stole body parts as "pranks". Grim humor, for some. Sociopathic inhumanity, for others. But not serial killers. John was bent over his knees, breathing out a kind of exhausted relief, telling himself he should have known, when he realised the brother was standing over him, coolbox in hand.

"I'm not going to put you on a leash," the brother said. "I don't care if you try to run away. You won't get very far, but that would be Mycroft's problem."

"I can't run," John said. He really did sound hoarse, he realised. He wasn't using his voice. He should start talking to himself.

"Your limp is psychosomatic," the brother said indifferently. He hefted the coolbox. "Let's go." 

John was struggling to keep up with the brother and thinking about running. He had nowhere to go and no money and no idea even where in London he was. But when they got to the corner and he looked up and realised they were on Great Russell Street, and the huge facade of the British Museum was looming behind the iron spears of the fence. He did know where he was. If the Tube was still running, he supposed they'd be heading for Holborn. 

A black cab appeared and the brother waved it over. Too late for the Tube, then. But the brother was expecting to be able to get into Barts? There was no emergency care access at Barts, he shouldn't be able to walk in. John sat down beside the brother, keeping his eye on the coolbox on the floor, realising only belatedly that he was probably supposed to kneel on the floor beside the coolbox. He clenched his hands together in his lap and stared down at them. 

"You're overthinking," the brother said. "I'll tell you what I want you to do. If I want you to do anything."

John glanced up, surprised, and saw the brother watching him, a cool and analytic expression on his face.

"Oh," he managed. "Thank you."

The brother looked away. The cab ride wasn't long. The brother picked up the coolbox, got out, and led John through an entrance no one but a former Barts student - or an employee - should have known about. The door had a keypad instead of a lock, that was the only difference since John's day, and for an instant, John was panicked that he would meet someone who knew him.

No one would remember him. No one looked at a slave. They were unlikely to meet anyone at this time of night. The brother walked briskly, clearly knowing his way, heading directly for the morgue.

There was only one person there. Normal for nightshift. She didn't look at John at all. 

"Good morning, Molly," the brother said.

"Oh, Sherlock - " She looked terribly pleased to see him. John found this inexplicable.

"I'm being evicted, and you know how moving firms are. Thought I'd better return the items you leant me for experiments."

"Oh," the woman said again, and this time she did look at John. She looked worried.

"Don't worry about John," the brother said. "Just confirm that these are all the body parts you leant me out of Barts morgue and we can go."

The woman picked up the coolbox and put it on one of the morgue tables. She opened it and looked inside. She didn't look at all surprised. 

"Evicted? Again? Where are the teeth?"

"Still in the bathroom at Montague Street," the brother said. "I wasn't giving those up. By the way, Molly - Doctor Hooper - " 

"Yes?" 

"I need a fresh corpse," the brother said. He smiled. "Next time you get one very recently dead, text me?"

"I can't let you have a _whole_ corpse," the woman said, seeming to see nothing unexpected about the request.

"I won't take it out of the morgue," the brother said. He was still smiling. It looked horrifyingly false to John. "I won't even cut bits off. Text me when you get your next fresh one. Come on, John."

"Have you got anywhere to stay?" the woman asked. "Are you all right?"

"A disagreement with the landlord," the brother said. "Text me!" He caught at John's arm as he passed, and tugged. "Come _on_."

The cab outside the hospital whisked them directly back to Montague Street. Standing on the street outside, the brother said "You didn't run."

"You're not a serial killer," John said.

The brother's mouth twitched. "Technically, you don't know that," he said. "But you do know now that the body parts you'll find around the place on a regular basis come from Barts morgue. You don't favour your right leg when you stand, you only limp when you walk. why don't you run?"

Slaves have a chip implanted under their skin that can be read by a simple scanner. The collar round his neck may not be very solid, but it's still beyond John's capacity to remove without a metal cutter. He would be caught if he ran away, and the penalties for being a runaway slave are bad. 

"Where would I run to?"

"You trained at Barts," the brother said. "You probably still know people who work there." He turned and left John standing in the street: heart thumping painfully, John followed him inside, because he didn't see what else to do. He _couldn't_ run. If he did, he'd be caught. 

The brother went back into his bedroom for the rest of the night. He played the violin for part of it. John slept badly. The brother left, imaculately dressed, an hour or so into daylight, and shortly afterwards, a moving firm arrived.

They didn't speak to him. The brother's belongings were boxed up - papers, books, clothing, science equipment - the fouled and broken kitchen equipment was left behind, and John was leashed, taken down to the moving van, made to kneel, and the leash fastened to a cleat in the floor of the van.

This wasn't the safest way of travelling, John realised. The brother didn't own very much when it was all boxed up like this - the van was mostly empty, nothing to brace himself against. The safest way to position himself was crouched on the floor, giving himself plenty of slack on the leash, pressing his body firmly against the metal. Like a little animal, he thought, hating the thought. A well-trained animal. No need for a cage.

He didn't want to go back to the cage.

The van moved, rumbling through London streets. John crouched there, listening to the traffic. He breathed, consciously keeping himself calm. They would let him out. They wouldn't leave him in here. 

But when they started unloading, the brother was there. He unhooked the leash from the cleat, tugged to make John get out of the van, and then took the leash off again, throwing it back into the van. He gave instructions to the van driver and his mate: he didn't speak to John and barely looked at him, but John was relieved to be out of the van. The flat was over a cafe called Speedy's. It smelled of bacon sandwiches and coffee and John swallowed, uncomfortably hungry. The brother rang the bell and the door opened: the woman - the landlady - greeted the brother with a hug and John with a cautious look.

"This is your... housekeeper, then?"

"Technically he belongs to my brother."

"Well, there's the extra bedroom upstairs, would he be using that?"

John looked down at the floor.

"Of course he'll be using that," the brother said, sounding mildly irritated. "John, unpack. I'll be back later." He went out the door.

"Oh dear," Mrs Hudson said, looking at John. "Well. You unpack, dear, and I'll bring you up a cup of tea."

Carrying the boxes up the stairs was tedious and painful. John found it manageable only if he propped most of the weight of a box on his good leg, steadied it with one hand, and hauled himself up by the bannister with his other. It was slow going, and when Mrs Hudson came back half an hour later she tutted.

"You can't do that, dear, not with your leg. You sit down and drink your tea."

John sat down in one of the armchairs. He supposed he should use the floor, but that would hurt getting up, and whatever Mrs Hudson said, he still had to get all the boxes upstairs.

But a few minutes later, two tall young men arrived. Speaking to each other in Urdu - John recognized the language though he didn't know more than a few words - they rapidly shifted everything stacked in the hall upstairs, ignoring John completely. John drank his tea. He heard them talking to Mrs Hudson downstairs - in English, they had Yorkshire accents. He heard Mrs Hudson coming upstairs.

The pain and confusion of trying to haul things upstairs that he couldn't really manage had faded: John was feeling more clearheaded. Mrs Hudson was free, and he was a slave, and she had just ensured he didn't fail at the only task Sherlock had left to him. He supposed he should greet her on his knees, but he couldn't face that. He stood up and tried to look subservient, head bowed.

"Mr Chachar owes me a favour and I knew his sons wouldn't mind," Mrs Hudson said cheerfully. "Would you like another cup of tea, dear?"

John swallowed. "Thank you." He gestured at the boxes. "Thank you, ma'am - "

"Mrs Hudson," she corrected. "Don't be silly, you couldn't possibly have carried all of Sherlock's stuff upstairs by yourself, not with that leg. I understand, I've got a hip. I've got to get back to my kitchen, but if Sherlock's not home by the time you're ready for lunch, you come downstairs and I'll make you a sandwich. Just this once." She bustled out, and then paused.

"I know what Sherlock's like. Did you have breakfast this morning?"

"No," John said.

"Oh, he's a silly man. Always rushing off, never takes time for his meals. He's like my husband, always got to be doing something. Right well, dear, don't think I'll make a habit of this, but I'll make you some toast and eggs, and I'll have a word with Sherlock."

Mrs Hudson ran the ground-floor cafe, and her kitchen was industrial-standard. She waved John to the only chair, made him a huge plate of toast, eggs, and a side of bacon, and watched him eat with an interest that bordered on the scientific.

"You've got a good healthy appetite," she said. "I like that. Sherlock's too thin. I daresay you'll be doing all the cooking. Make sure he eats a good breakfast before he goes out in the mornings."

It was the first real meal that John had eaten in... he couldn't remember. The military hospital, probably. Days ago. The food in the cages had been regular, precisely measured kibble, tasteless and biscuit-textured. The toast was crisp, the eggs were perfect, he could taste butter and salt and pepper. Mrs Hudson even let him have jam to eat with his last piece of toast. It felt strange and comforting not to be hungry.

"Come downstairs when you're ready for lunch," she said again.

"Thank you," he said, meaning it more than he could say, and, logy with food, hardly noticed the trip upstairs.

The meal gave him sudden diarhea about ten minutes into his hauling the boxes about, but he felt better afterwards. The bathroom was an elderly Victorian kind of place, the only modern fitting an overhead shower in the bath. There was no toilet paper. John took advantage of being left alone to shower - there was hot water, and he had just unpacked towels - and even though he had to put the same clothes on again, he felt almost renewed.

Doctor Watson had never owned a slave, or ever expected to. Slaves were sold to immensely rich people for personal service, or to institutions to do rote labor, or to factories to be worked til they dropped.

The only contact Captain Watson had ever had with slaves in his career had been occasionally at military bases in the UK: they weren't trusted overseas, so all rote labor at military bases in Afghanistan was done by freedmen.

He supposed that if he had gone through proper training he would know how to behave, how to ask his owner (the brother of his owner) to buy food. All he had was vague memories of how slaves were supposed to act and think and speak. None of that was very helpful to him now.

The new flat was nicer, John decided: and given a chance, he could keep it that way. He was moving around, unpacking things, sorting out books and papers. He put the laboratory equipment, with some qualms, in the kitchen. Maybe if he were using it to cook in, the brother would keep it clear of body parts?

There are no cleaning materials. There is hot water, at least. He'd like to wipe down surfaces in the kitchen. He'd like to vacuum the carpet. He'd like to eat hot food. He'd like a cup of tea.

There was no sign of the brother. When John found himself getting hungry again, he ventured downstairs. Mrs Hudson gave him a sandwich and made him sit down and eat it. When he said, hopefully that he'd like to be able to clean the flat, she practically hugged him. "I can lend Sherlock a vacuum-cleaner, don't worry about that, and I'll tell him what you need to get the place clean and keep it that way." 

There's a calendar on the wall of her kitchen. While Mrs Hudson is making a list, John stared at it. He has been a slave for four days. Next week is Harry's birthday. She'll probably try to call him, drunk and maudlin, and find out she can't.

John went upstairs. He had a roiling upset feeling in his stomach.

The sandwich and chips in his belly were fighting his abused digestive system. John sat down on the floor, and folded his arms across his stomach, and breathed, slowly. He had no idea when he would get another meal: he needed the nourishment. He could not afford to throw up. He could not afford to throw up.

Sitting there, he realised that while nothing else had changed - nothing at all - there was a pink suitcase in the middle of the floor. Very pink. Not very big. An overnight case. It didn't look like anything the brother would have bought. But it's being there at all meant that while he had been downstairs with Mrs Hudson, the brother had come back, and had found John not in the apartment. And that meant he was going to be punished, whenever the brother got back.

He could not afford to throw up. He didn't know when he would get a meal like that again.

He didn't throw up. He could feel diarrhea building in his colon, and twenty minutes later, he stood up and made a dash to the toilet. His gut cramped with foulness: most of what he let go was liquid. 

But he hadn't thrown up. John stood, leaning against the wall. He swallowed, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes. He had to go on with being a slave here because the alternatives were worse. Outside, the door to the living room opened. A voice - one John didn't know - yelled "Sherlock!"

John swallowed. That wouldn't have been so bad - the voice hadn't sounded unfriendly - except the shout was followed by people - three - four - five - entering the apartment. 

The decision about whether or not to leave the bathroom was made for him when the door bounced open and a woman walked in.

"Who the hell are you?" she said, and John froze.

He's supposed to say something, there must be protocol for this, rules of behavior, but he has no idea what a slave is supposed to say to a friend of his owner who's just barged into his owner's home -

The woman holds up an ID badge, and John realised there are even worse problems. The woman is a police detective. Detective Sergeant S. Donovan.

"Well?" She sounded mad. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"I live here," John said.

Her eyes suddenly focussed, and she reached out and yanked at his shirt, exposing the metal collar. "Inspector!" she yelled. "Freak's got a slave here!"

After that, at least he really doesn't have to do or say anything. That's something. The inspector, a tall grey-haired man, doesn't manhandle John or search him. He pointed at an area of the floor and the sergeant pushes him down on to his knees and cuffed his hands behind his back.

The inspector sat down on an armchair, facing John. The other four start searching the apartment.

They're not being very thorough, it occurred to John. Though maybe civilian police do this differently from military.

The outside front door opens. Downstairs, a voice - the brother - calls out "Mrs Hudson!" and the inspector sighed.

The brother's first words, addressed to the inspector, are "What are you doing?"

"Well, I knew you'd find the case. I'm not stupid."

"You can't just break into my flat," the brother said.

"And you can't withhold evidence. And I didn't break into your flat."

"Well, what do you call this then?" 

The inspector leaned back in the armchair, contemplating the brother placidly. "It's a drugs bust."

John glanced at the brother. He looked genuinely indignant. This was probably exactly the kind of thing the tall man had wanted to be told about - the Metropolitan police catching up on the drugs habit (though John hadn't noticed any signs of addiction aside from cigarettes) but he didn't have any way of getting in touch with him. Yet. 

"Anderson, what are you doing here on a drugs bust?" the brother demanded, suddenly, indignantly. He evidently knew them. What was a professional violinist (who borrowed bits of corpses from Barts mortuary?) doing with first-hand knowledge of the drugs squad? Withholding evidence? What evidence?

"Oh, I volunteered," one of the cops said. 

The expression on the brother's face made it all worthwhile. Especially when the inspector said "They all did. They're not strictly speaking _on_ the drugs squad, but they're very keen."

"What's Freak doing with a slave?" the sergeant asked. 

The brother looked at John for the first time. "Why have you put him in handcuffs? What did he do?"

"You're not allowed to own slaves any more," the inspector said. 

"He isn't mine, he's my brother's. On loan."

"Keep looking, guys," the inspector called to the other cops. He stood up, and looked directly at the brother. "Or you could help us properly and I'll stand them down and take the cuffs off your slave."

"This is childish," the brother said. He was pacing. 

"Well, I'm dealing with a child. Sherlock, this is _our_ case. I'm letting you in, but you do _not_ go off on your own. Clear?"

"Oh, what, so - so - so you set up a pretend drugs bust to bully me?" 

The inspector is grinning. John wishes he dared. "It stops being pretend if they find anything."

"I am clean!" the brother announced.

"Is your flat? All of it?" The inspector sounds like he doesn't believe it. They have an exchange about not smoking - the brother uses patches, though the blanket still smelled of tobacco - and the inspector said: "So let's work together. We've found Rachel."

"Who is she?" 

"Jennifer Wilson's only daughter."

"Her daughter?" The brother sounded bewildered. "Why would she write her daughter's name? Why?"

"Never mind that. We found the case." One of the officers is pointing triumphantly to the pink overnight bag. "According to _someone_ , the murderer has the case, and we found it in the hands of our favourite psychopath."

"I'm not a psychopath, Anderson," the brother said. "I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research."

John stared down at the floor. High-functioning sociopath would explain a lot. 

"You need to bring Rachel in. You need to question her. I need to question her."

"She's dead," the inspector said.

"Excellent!"

John lifted his head, startled. The brother really did look pleased. 

"How, when and why? Is there a connection? There has to be."

"Well, I doubt it, since she's been dead for fourteen years. Technically she was never alive. Rachel was Jennifer Wilson’s stillborn daughter, fourteen years ago."

Interested pleasure transmuted quite visibly to confusion: the most complete range of expression John had ever seen on the brother's face. "No," he said slowly. "That's ... that's not right. How ... Why would she do that? Why?"

One of the officers interrupted. "Why would she think of her daughter in her last moments? Yeah - sociopath; I'm seeing it now."

"She didn't _think_ about her daughter. She scratched her name on the floor with her fingernails. She was dying. It took effort. It would have _hurt_."

John realised, at last, that they were talking about a murder. A recent murder. The brother had found her dead? Had seen the crime scene? A dying woman, using her fingernails to scratch a stillborn daughter's name into the floor? 

Sociopath; psychopath: professional violinist: obsessive about crimes? Some crimes? Was that why the body parts from the morgue? Why would the police want to know an obsessive violinist's opinion about a crime? Was the brother a former police officer, kicked out for drug addiction? That made sense. 

The brother was pacing. Back and forth. John was in the way. After a few moments, the brother stopped and held out his hand to the inspector. "Cuff keys. Either let John up or put him on the sofa, he's in my way."

"If you were dying ... if you'd been murdered: in your very last few seconds what would you say?" The inspector must have handed over the keys. The brother crouched down behind him and undid the cuffs. John let out a small, relieved gasp. 

"Please, God, let me live."

The brother sounded exasperated again. "Oh, use your imagination!"

"I don't have to," John muttered. He was startled to see the brother still looking at him - beyond startled to realise the inspector, also, was staring at him with an expression of consideration on his face. "Where did you get him, Sherlock?"

"Told you, he's my brother's. She's trying to tell us something." He started pacing again. John got up, cautiously, and edged himself backwards to the wall. 

"Isn’t the doorbell working?" Mrs Hudson appeared at the door. "Your taxi's here, Sherlock."

"I didn't order a taxi. Go away."

"Oh, dear. They're making such a mess. What are they looking for?"

Since no one else seemed likely to answer her, John said "It's a drugs bust, ma'am." 

She gave him a look of mild panic. "But they're just for my hip. They're herbal soothers."

"Shut up, everybody, shut up!" the brother shouted suddenly. "Don't move, don't speak, don't breathe. I'm trying to think. Anderson, face the other way. You're putting me off."

"What," the detective protested, "My face is?"

"Everybody quiet and still," the inspector ordered. "Anderson, turn your back."

"Oh, for God’s sake!" the detective sounded outraged.

"Your back, now, please!"

"Come on," the brother said, as if to himself. "think. Quick!"

"What about your taxi?" Mrs Hudson asked.

" _Mrs Hudson!_ " the brother yelled.

She turned and hurried away down the stairs. Probably to hide her herbal soothers. John wished he dared go after her. The brother stopped and looked around the room, eyes widening. "Oh," he said softly, and then smiled, absolutely delighted. "Ah! She was clever, clever, yes!" He was still pacing, still talking, staring round, wide-eyed. "She's cleverer than you lot and she's dead. Do you see, do you get it? She didn’t lose her phone, she never lost it. She planted it on him. When she got out of the car, she knew that she was going to her death. She left the phone in order to lead us to her killer."

"But how?" the inspector asked.

Even civilian phones used GPS these days, John knew, though he'd never owned one. The woman had hidden her phone in the murderer's car so that they could trace the car. 

"What? What do you mean, how?" The brother looked confused again. The inspector shrugged at him. 

"Rachel! Don't you see? Rachel!" The brother laughed. He sounded genuinely amused, if not very nice about it. "Oh, look at you lot. You're all so vacant. Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing. Rachel is not a name." He looked around again, and seemed to notice John. "John, on the luggage, there's a label. E-mail address."

The overnight bag had a luggage label with an email address. "Jennie dot pink, at mephone dot org dot uk."

"Where did you put my laptop? Go and get it." He went on talking, to the inspector. Or to nobody in particular, John wondered. He'd dumped the laptop with all the other personal stuff in the downstairs bedroom.

"Oh, I've been too slow. She didn't have a laptop, which means she did her business on her phone, so it's a smartphone, it’s e-mail enabled." He took the laptop from John without really looking at him and flipped it open, starting to type almost immediately. "So there was a website for her account. The username is her e-mail address... and all together now, the password is?"

"Rachel," Lestrade said.

From where he was standing, John could see both the screen and the brother's face. The screen said _The username or password you entered is incorrect._ The brother's face looked suddenly, intensely disappointed. 

"Rachel1996," John said. "Fourteen years ago. Or Rachel1995."

"So we can read her e-mails," one of the cops said. "So what?"

This time, the password worked. The brother spared him a very thoughtful look, and then said "Anderson, don't talk out loud. You lower the I.Q. of the whole street. We can do much more than just read her e-mails. It’s a smartphone, it’s got GPS, which means if you lose it you can locate it online. She’s leading us directly to the man who killed her."

"Unless he got rid of it," the inspector said.

"No, he didn’t," the brother said impatiently. "Come on, come on. Quickly!"

Mrs Hudson reappeared at the door again. "Sherlock, dear. This taxi driver..."

The brother handed John the laptop. He got to his feet and walked over to the door. "Mrs Hudson, isn't it time for your evening soother?"

John sat down on the floor. The website was showing a message claiming the phone would be located in under three minutes. 

"We need to get vehicles, get a helicopter," the brother said. "We have to move fast. The phone battery won't last forever."

"We'll just have a map reference, not a name, if he even still has the phone - " the inspector said.

"It's not far from here," John said, surprised. 

The inspector bent over the laptop screen. "Right. Here exactly. Two two one Baker Street."

"How can it be here? _How?_ " 

"Well, maybe it was in the case when you brought it back and it fell out somewhere," the inspector suggested.

"What, and _I_ didn’t notice it? _Me?_ I didn’t notice?" The brother sounded insulted.

"Guys," the inspector said to the other police, "we’re also looking for a mobile somewhere around here, belonged to the victim ..."

John stayed on the floor, looking at the map. Baker Street was further away from Barts than Montague Street, but still, in principle, within walking distance. The brother wasn't paying attention to him or anyone else: the inspector's people were searching the flat again. 

A text alert sounded. The brother pulled out his own phone, and looked at it. Then, without a word to anyone, he walked out. 

"Sherlock!" the inspector called after him. 

"Need some fresh air!" the brother called back, and the sound of the front door slamming cut him off.

John was still looking at the map. The police were still searching the flat. The dot marking the whereabouts of the phone moved away.

"It's not here any more," he said out loud.

No one seemed to hear him. When the police officer - Anderson? - nearly tripped over him and kicked him, John shifted to get out of the way and stood up, still clutching the laptop. 

"None of that, Anderson," the inspector said. 

"He got in my way," the cop said, peevishly.

"It's not here any more," John said, whle the inspector seemed to be looking at him. He showed the inspector the screen: the dot was several blocks away and moving northward.

The sergeant came back into the room. "And he's gone."

"So," the peevish cop said. "The phone was here, and it's gone. Sherlock Holmes was here, and he's gone. Am I the only one who sees a pattern?"

"Let's take the slave and the laptop - and the luggage - to the Yard," the sergeant said. "Get forensics on it." 

"We'll take the luggage," the inspector said. "We don't need Sherlock's laptop, and we're not taking the slave."

"Freak isn't supposed to have slaves any more," the sergeant said. "Remember what happened to the last one? And the one before that?"

"He told us the slave belongs to his brother," the inspector said.

"And you believe him?" 

"I think we don't have time for this," the inspector said. "Call in the email and the password to the Yard, we'll get the GPS traced properly."

The sergeant shook her head. "We shouldn't leave the slave here, sir. Sherlock Holmes has been responsible for the deaths of four slaves so far, he's legally banned from owning slaves, I don't want to come back and find this one on the pavement like the last."

"Donovan!" The inspector sounded exasperated. "I'll look into it, OK? You, try not to get killed. We don't have time. Let's go."

They switched the main light off when they left, as if absentmindedly: of course to them there was no one left in the room. John didn't mind. The flat was strangely peaceful with no one in it but John. He sat there and stared at the screen, at the dot steadily moving away from Baker Street. _Freak isn't supposed to have slaves any more. - You're not a serial killer. - Technically, you don't know that._

_Do take care of John. We wouldn't want a repetition of those other little incidents, would we?_

Some time later, the dot started moving towards Baker Street. John had been watching it for some time before he was sure. It was lagged by about five minutes, but it looked as if the driver had circled round and was coming back towards the Finchley Road.

The murder that the brother had got himself mixed up in, had been of a woman who'd been able to hide her mobile phone in a car. The car was now coming back to Baker Street. The dot said it was still in Finchley Road, but it was five minutes behind the times: there was a black London cab pulling up in the street outside, and - John saw - the cab driver got out, and hauled the brother, long and floppy, out of the back of his cab.

John picked up the laptop and retreated quietly into the bedroom, leaving the door open. He shut down the laptop and rolled under the bed.

The door opened and the cab driver came in, dropping something heavy and human on the floor. It groaned. So the brother wasn't dead yet. There was the sound of footsteps: the cabbie must have glanced in the bedroom door. The cabbie switched the main light on, and a few minutes later, John heard him building a fire in the grate. The sound of the crackling fire was almost pleasant. 

A few minutes after that, John heard the brother getting sluggishly to his feet, and the cab driver said "I hope you don’t mind. Well, you gave me your address. You've only been out for about ten minutes. You're strong," the cabbie added. "I'm impressed." 

The brother was trying to move around. The cabbie's voice was almost soothing, deeply scary. "That's right – you warm yourself up. I made everything nice and cosy for you."

"This is my flat," the brother said feebly.

"Course it is, yeah. Found your keys in your jacket. I thought, well, why not? People like to die at home."

The brother fell over. John winced involuntarily. 

"Now, now," the cabbie said, mock-jocular. "The drug's still in your system. You'll be weak as a kitten for at least an hour. I could do anything I wanted to you right now, Mister Holmes."

It sounded to John as if the brother was still struggling to get up. But failing.

"Anything at all," the cabbie said, as if thinking through the things he might want to do. The brother whimpered. "But don’t worry. I'm only going to kill you."

"The whole house is empty," the cabbie said. "Even your landlady’s away, so there’s no point in raising your voice. We're all locked in, nice and snug."

"Still a bit of a risk, isn't it?" the brother asked. "Here?"

"You call that a risk?" The cabbie sounded amused. "This is a risk." There was a pause. A click of something being put down on a table. "You wanted to know how I made them take the poison. You're going to love this."

There was a pause. The brother said "How?"

"Take a moment," the cabbie said. "Get yourself together. I want your best game."

The brother sighed. "My... my best what?"

"I know who you are, Mister Holmes. The moment you said your name, I knew. Sherlock Holmes." From the sound of his voice, he was wandering round the living room. John lay very still. The cabbie was almost talking to himself. "I've been on your website loads of times. You are brilliant. You are. Proper genius. 'The Science of Deduction.' Now that is proper thinking. Between you and me, why can’t people think?" He sounded angry. "Don't it drive you mad? Why can't people just think?"

"Oh, I see," the brother said, his voice slurred. "So you're a proper genius too."

"Don't look it, do I?" the cabbie said, sounding smug. "Funny little man, drives a cab. But you'll know better in a minute. Chances are it'll be the last thing you _ever_ know."

"Who are you?" the brother asked.

"Nobody. For now. But I won't die a nobody, will I?" From the noise, he was sitting down now. There was a table. Two chairs. Something on the table. Poison. A serial killer who got his victims to take poison. 

"Two pills," the brother said.

"There's a good pill and a bad pill. You take the good pill, you live; take the bad pill, you die."

"And you know which is which," the brother said.

"Course I know."

"But I don't."

"Wouldn't be a game if you knew. You're the one who chooses."

_But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's?_

"It's not a game. It's chance," the brother said.

_Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you._

"I’ve played five times. I'm alive. It's not chance, Mister Holmes, it's chess. It's a game of chess, with one move, and one survivor. And this ... this is the move. Did I just give you the good pill or the bad pill? You can choose either one.

_But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me._

"That's what you did, to all of them," the brother said slowly. "You gave them a choice."

"You've got to admit: as serial killers go, I'm verging on nice! Anyway, time's up. Choose."

"And then?"

"And then, together, we take our medicine. Let's play."

_Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you._

"Play what? It's a fifty-fifty chance."

John sighed. Very quietly, he began to push himself up on to all fours. Admittedly the brother still sounded drugged. But if he couldn't read a situation directly from _The Princess Bride_ , he was going to take a poison pill no matter which he chose. And the tall man would send him back to the cage if his brother was killed. And anyway, even if John didn't like the brother, he liked what he knew of the cabbie even less.

"You're not playing the numbers," the cabbie said, "you're playing me. Did I just give you the good pill or the bad pill? Is it a bluff? Or a double-bluff? Or a triple-bluff?"

"It's still chance," the brother said.

"Five people in a row? It's not chance."

_No, it's an immunity to iocane powder._

"It's luck."

"It's genius. I know how people think. I know how people think _I_ think. I can see it all, like a map in my head. Everyone's so stupid - even you." There was a pause, and the cabbie added "Course, maybe God just loves me."

"Either way," the brother said, sounding genuinely and strangely amused "you're wasted as a cabbie. How did you choose which ones?"

"Anone who didn't know where they were going, because they were drunk or lost or new in town." The cabbie chuckled, jovially amused. "Anyone I could walk through the wrong door." 

John really didn't like him. He got to his feet and glanced through the bedroom door. They were sitting either side of the small table, two bottles in front of each other, Vizzini and the Man in Black. 

"You risked your life five times just to kill strangers," the brother said. "You're dying, aren't you?"

"So are you," the cabbie snapped.

"You don't have long, though. Am I right?" The brother sounded oddly confident.

"Aneurism," the cabbie said, after a moment. "Right in here. Any breath could be my last. It's your only hope, Mr Holmes. Bet on the aneurism."

"I'm not a betting man," the brother said. 

"D'you think I’m bitter?" the cabbie asked.

"Well, you have just murdered five people."

"I've outlived five people. That's the most fun you can have with an aneurism."

"What if I don't take either?" the brother said.

"Then I choose for you, and I force it down your throat. Right now there's nothing you could do to stop me. Funnily enough, no-one's ever gone for that option. And I don’t think you will either. You make the slightest move towards your phone, I'll kill you."

"Oh, I don't think so." The brother sounded almost light-hearted. "Not your kind of murder."

"You want to risk it?" The cabbie nodded down at the pills. "Wouldn't you rather risk this? Which one do you think? Which one's the good pill?"

The brother pushed himself to his feet. He was staring down at the bottles on the table. 

"Come on," the cabbie said. "I know you've got a theory."

John shook his head. Now would be the time for the brother to walk away from the table. Once separated from the cabbie - John supposed the cab driver might have a gun, he certainly wasn't anxious to find out the hard way - a rush from the bedroom door would get the cabbie down, and the brother could call the police. 

But after a moment, the brother pointed at a bottle on the table, and the cabbie nodded, saying in a bright voice, "Oh. Interesting." He seemed to hand the brother a pill, and picked up one himself. "So what d'you think? Shall we?" 

John stared. Looking fascinated, eyes for nothing else, the brother was lifting a pill to his mouth. 

"Really, what do you think? Can you beat me?" the cabbie asked, soothingly. "I bet you get bored, don't you? A man like you, so clever. I’ll bet you're not bored now."

John stepped out into the living room. "He's an idiot," he said flatly. 

Both men turned to him with a look of identical astonishment. 

"And you're no dazzling intellect either," John added, sourly. "Both pills are poison. You're immune to it. It's not luck, it's just murder."

With an inarticulate roar of fury, the cab driver jumped to his feet and rushed him. John ducked, rolled, and gut-punched upward: the cab driver collapsed. 

The brother was standing, pill in one hand, staring at him with open-mouthed astonishment. Then, apparently coming to himself, he staggered over to the landline phone in the corner, dialed a number - longer than three figures - and said "Lestrade. I've just caught you a serial killer. Well, more or less." There was a pause. "I'm at Baker Street, of course," he said, and put the phone down.

He was looking at John. "Both pills poisoned," he said. "I'll need to test them. How did you guess?"

"I didn't guess," John said. He cleared his throat. "I knew. It was obvious."

"Not obvious to me," the brother said. He sounded affronted.

"Well. You're an idiot," John said.

The brother smiled: not cold smooth fakery, but a real, amused smile of pleasure. "I underestimated you," he said. 

The sound of cars, and flashing lights outside. "Is he still alive?" the brother asked.

"Yes," John said, and reached for a pulse on the throat, and said "No."

"Aneurism," the brother said again, thoughtfully. "He could have gone at any time, but no doubt your attack precipitated it. John, go into my bedroom, lie down on the bed, don't move. I doubt if you'd be punished, but let's avoid the court case."

For a while, the flat was full of police again, and the brother politely answering questions. After a while, it emptied out, and the only voice was the inspector's. 

"Were you right?"

"I'm sorry?" the brother said.

"Did you choose the right pill?"

"I don't know. In all the confusion, I lost track. I don't know which I chose."

"Maybe he beat you."

"Maybe. But he's dead."

"I'll want you down at the Yard tomorrow morning to answer a few more questions," the inspector said. "Where's your slave?"

"Not my slave," the brother said, as if automatically. "He's through in my bedroom. I told him to go and lie down there."

"And he's been there all this time?"

"Where else would he be?"

"He didn't see the murderer?"

"No." 

"No point in taking evidence from him?"

"None at all."

"Donovan thinks I should confiscate him," the inspector said, after a moment. 

"You'd need to apply to my brother for permission to do that."

There was silence for a few minutes. "Don't make me regret leaving him with you."

"How can I make you do anything? Good night, inspector."

The door closed. 

THe brother came over to the bedroom, and switched the light on. John sat up. The brother was looking at him, appraisingly. 

"Hungry?"

"Starving."

"End of Baker Street, there's a good Chinese stays open until two. You can always tell a good Chinese by examining the bottom third of the door handle. Come on."

"Who are you? What do you do?" John asked, when they were halfway down the street. Walking along in the dark, no leash, it almost felt like being human again.

"What do you think?" 

"You're a professional violinist with a morbid curiosity about dead bodies," John said. "Sir," he added, belatedly.

"Sherlock. I've never played the violin professionally," the brother corrected. "I'm a consulting detective. Only one in the world. I invented the job."

"What does that mean?" John eyed him. "...sir?"

"Sherlock," the brother said, again. "It means when the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me. I observe everything, I deduce everything, and once the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains must be the truth. I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end. You've got questions. Ask them."

They went into the restaurant: it was bright and smelled of food. Sherlock picked up the menu with a look of unforced pleasure, picked up another and handed it to John. He sat down across the table from his owner. Sherlock. He wasn't going to ask the question that was still on his mind: _How did your other slaves die? Are you going to kill me?_

"How did you know about the aneurism?"

Sherlock leaned forward, looking pleased, and told him.


	2. The Blind Banker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's convinced John's not a slave. John would kill for a nice cup of tea. There are sandwiches. And no actual non-consensual sex.

He's crying and there's a dream.

Eggs and chocolate on the pavement. Stanzas of music played on piano and violin.

The piano is black and ivory, built for two players. Duets. There is only one player. The violin is playing by itself.

Chocolate melts and drips red down the wall, flowing thick as blood. Eggs crunch on the stones, fragile pieces light as dust and sticky as candy. Music ebbs and flows across his dream.

He's alone in the dream. The figures playing music shade into past and future. Neither exist in the present. Rain is falling on the glass. Hard thumps of large water obliterate the clear light and transform into water that flows and runs like honey over ice.

He wakes. It's raining.

He's still crying.

In the cage people came around at fairly regular intervals and fitted drinking bottles between the bars.

This is still better than the cage. It is also better than the first two mornings of Sherlock Holmes and Montague Street. This is the second morning John has woken up in Baker Street. After having an almost-normal meal with his owner in the Chinese restaurant down the street, John had thought to ask if he could sleep on the couch, and Sherlock had given absent permission with a wave of his hand to sleep anywhere he liked so long as he stayed out of Sherlock's way.

But the morning after, yesterday, Sherlock Holmes had gone out at first light and not come back. In an hour or so, he will have been gone for twenty-four hours, and John isn't sure what he's supposed to do. There is no food in the flat. He could go downstairs and ask Mrs Hudson for breakfast, but he's been deliberately rationing that in case she runs out of patience: he got fed by Mrs Hudson yesterday, he'll probably be asking her for more food tomorrow. 

He was supposed to keep the tall brother informed. He'd do it, happily, if only he knew _how_. 

John got up, undressed, showered, brushed his teeth, got back into his clothes (he's been wearing the same outerwear now for four days: the bag of clothes he was handed when he was delivered here included packets of boxer shorts and socks, and he's gone through all the clean ones) and sorts out laundry. He can't do any laundry until he can leave the house. Unless he can ask Mrs Hudson. 

Tomorrow. He'll ask her tomorrow.

But yesterday he unpacked and organised - Sherlock's laptop is password-protected, John tried and failed to figure it out - and Mrs Hudson loaned him a vacuum cleaner and some cleaning materials and he got the apartment as clean and tidy as he could. There is an upstairs bedroom but no furniture for it. He went to sleep feeling like he'd accomplished something.

But he didn't. 

Nothing here belongs to him, not even the clothes he's wearing. He could leave the house but he'd be dependent on Mrs Hudson to get back in: and she might tell Sherlock and Sherlock might punish him. (He didn't find the riding-crop. If he'd found it, he'd planned to hide it, so it's perhaps just as well he didn't.) The longer Sherlock stays away, the more frightened John becomes. He was supposed to keep the tall brother informed. It's his only chance of becoming free someday. He can't serve in the army as a freedman, but he could get one of the non-military service jobs on active service that don't go to slaves.He could go back to Afghanistan, or somewhere else the Army is on active duty. Or at least, not going back into the cages.

Sherlock isn't here, Sherlock nearly killed himself, and John hasn't told the tall brother anything, he doesn't know _how_. John stood by the window and looked out at the street. He is steadily, gnawingly hungry, and he is doing his best to forget about that.

A car drew up outside. A man got out of it: a Sikh dressed in traditional costume. John stared down at him, randomly curious. The Sikh disappeared from John's field of view and John stared down the street.

The doorbell did not ring. There was no knock at the door. The lock rattled, then opened, and the Sikh stood on the threshhold a moment and walked into the room. His face was covered by a scarf and he was wearing, not the tiny symbolic knife that most civilian Sikhs carry, but a long curved sword.

"Naan e kee teraa?" the Sikh said.

"I don't speak Punjabi," John said. 

"Mere heer le ke aayo!" 

"Look, you want Sherlock Holmes," John said. "He isn't here."

"Sherlock Holmes," the Sikh said. He sounded very angry. He said something else, so spitting mad John wasn't even sure it was still Punjabi, and moved towards him, drawing his sword.

He was almost at John before John realized that the Sikh really meant to kill him: and it was a moment of realization so intense that it stripped away everything else. It almost felt like joy.

Much later, John was sitting on the armchair, cradling his left hand with his right, wishing he had an icepack, when the door opened again and he looked up sharply. He was actually relieved to realise this time it was Sherlock Holmes. John had done his best to straighten up: the only sign left was a curved mark on the kitchen table, and that was pretty battered already. 

"Did he give you a message for me?" Holmes asked. 

John was on his feet. He tucked his hands behind his back. "Who?"

"Don't lie to me," Holmes said, in a matter-of-fact voice. "The man who came to see me about the Jharia diamond. Did he leave a message?" 

"He didn't speak English. I don't know Punjabi. He didn't mention a diamond."

"I was told that my message had been received and understood," Holmes said, still matter-of-factly. He came into the room, and walked over to John, staring down at him with cold eyes. "What message?" His voice had suddenly changed, rough and harsh as worked steel, a snarl that cut like a strimmer. "Don't lie to me, John, I will always know and I will always punish you. You will bleed if you lie to me. _What message_?"

John stared back at him. He was quite sure that Holmes meant it. He'd known since the first night he arrived what Holmes would do to a slave if he felt like punishing him. He knew there was nothing he could do to stop Holmes or defend himself. He braced himself, shoulders straightening, hands tucked behind his back, chin up. "Well, he tried to kill me, if that's what you mean. No diamond, though."

Holmes stared down at him. The corner of his mouth twitched, slightly, in what might have been a smile. "Really," he said, audibly disbelieving. His voice had lost the strimmer's edge. "And yet here you are, quite alive. Bearing in mind my previous comments about what I will do if you lie to me - what happened?"

"He showed up. With a tulwar. You know, an Indian saber? Big one. He had a kirpan as well but he didn't draw it. He came at me with the saber, we had a bit of a tussle, and I knocked him out."

"So much I'd deduced already from the mark on the kitchen table and the disorder in the room," Holmes said. 

John blinked and stared round. He recovered himself. "Well, then I put him in a pair of police handcuffs - " there had been five pairs, scattered through the boxes of stuff from Montague Street. John had been relieved to get rid of at least one pair - and carried him downstairs and popped him on the front stoop. His car was still outside, so I knew they'd pick him up." 

"What happened to the tulwar?" Holmes asked.

"Accidentally," John said, with emphasis, "I trod on it. When it was at an angle. Snapped clean off. Couldn't help it." It had taken several tries to prop it at exactly the right angle where a kick from his heel would snap the blade, but the Sikh had been out cold the whole time. John had checked. There was no way anyone could prove anything else. 

Holmes laughed. No, Holmes _giggled_. John stood bewildered, his hands moving to his sides, clutching at his legs, feeling as stupid as a dog when its owner laughs at a joke it doesn't understand. "And to think I told them searching for a lost jewel would be dull." He turned away, bent down to move the chair under which - well out of sight - John had stowed the two pieces of the broken sword. 

"It really was a case, then?" John asked. "You're going to find their Jharia diamond?"

"Dull," Holmes dismissed. He pushed the chair back, covering the broken sword again. "I sent them a message." He bestowed a dazzling and apparently quite genuine smile on John. "Oh, don't look at me like that," he said. "You did what my brother pays you for, he won't be angry, you won't be in trouble. How did he get you to pretend to be a slave?"

 _What?_ John thought. "What?" he said out loud.

"Sir," Holmes said, very softly. Watching him intently. "If you're a slave, you'd call me 'sir'."

"Yes, sir," John said, unevenly. He tucked his hands behind his back again, and stood up straight. "Sorry, sir. Allow me to serve you, sir. Would sir like some tea? Oh wait, there isn't any."

"When you're hungry enough, you'll call my brother to get yourself out of here," Holmes said, with a wave of his hand. "Where's my laptop?"

"In the bedroom," John said. "Sir."

"Then fetch it, John," Holmes said, sitting down at the living room table. 

Fetching the laptop didn't take long, but long enough for John to regret having talked back to Holmes. He set it gently down on the table in front of Holmes, and knelt down on the floor. 

Holmes cast a curious glance at him, opened the laptop, and started typing.

He typed fast. John knelt on the carpet. After a while he bowed his head. He could hear Holmes' fingers clicking the keyboard and the mouse: he might be checking his email, or playing a game, or writing a thesis, for all John knew.

"Don't you have work to do?" Holmes said, after a few minutes.

"No, sir," John said, very meekly. 

"No? Nothing to do?" Holmes sounded faintly sarcastic again.

"I could do the laundry," John offered.

"Fine. Do it." Holmes sounded absent.

John waited. He couldn't hear fingers on the keyboard any more. He ventured to look up. Holmes was sitting with his fingers steepled under his chin, staring at the laptop screen.

"I'll need money for the launderette and keys for the front door, sir," John said, trying to keep his voice meek and matter-of-fact.

Holmes stood up. "I need to go to the bank," he said, and walked out.

John leaped to his feet as soon as the door closed and reached for the laptop. Holmes had been checking his email and doing something on his website. Before John could get his hands on the keyboard, the screen locked. 

John made three stabs at getting the password, and gave up.

\---------------

Holmes didn't come back till after dark. John drank water and thought about eating toothpaste and decided he wasn't that hungry, yet, and walked around the room and drank more water. He lay down on the couch for a while but he wasn't sleepy and lying still made hunger cramps worse. 

Holmes didn't bring any food back with him. He didn't speak to John at all. He was carrying a plastic carrier bag but it contained only an aerosol can of yellow paint and a box of photo-quality paper. No food. Holmes set up the printer, plugged his laptop in, and fed the paper through it: the photographs he printed out were of walls and a portrait of some elderly gentleman, all marred with slashes of yellow paint. Then he stuck the photographs up around the mirror above the fire, and stood and looked at them, in silence, for some time.

"Did you do that, sir?" John asked, looking at the photos. 

"What?" Holmes looked at him as if he'd forgotten he was there. He sat down at the table, by his laptop, still staring at the photographs. "Get me a pen."

John thought about throwing the pen at him. He didn't, though. He walked over to Holmes and held out the pen, just far enough that Holnes would have to reach for it.

"I'm a slave," John said, when Holmes looked at him. "I don't understand why you think I'm anything else. I can't take this collar off, I don't have any money, I haven't eaten since yesterday because there isn't any food, and I can't go out because I'm not allowed. I'm hungry, _sir_ , I need something to eat." Hearing himself, he realised his voice had gone rough and demanding, and wondered if he should kneel again, but he didn't care if Holmes did punish him, at least it would take his mind off the constant hunger chewing at his guts. 

Holmes took the pen. He pointed at his laptop screen. "Here, have a look." He had it open to a news site. The lead article was headlined **GHOSTLY KILLER LEAVES A MYSTERY FOR THE POLICE**. There was a photograph of a bald, overweight man. The article began: _An intruder who can walk through walls murdered a man in his London apartment last night. Brian Lukis, 41, a freelance journalist from Earl’s Court was found shot in his fourth floor flat but all his doors and windows were locked and there were no apparent signs of a break in._

"The police don't know how the killer got in," Holmes said. "Happened last night. Journalist shot dead in his flat; doors locked, windows bolted from the inside - exactly the same as Van Coon. He’s killed another one."

"Who's Van coon? Sir?" John asked.

"Sherlock. The man this message was meant for," Holmes said impatiently. He shut down his laptop and gestured at the yellow paint in the photographs. "These symbols. I can't place them. Stand there."

"And do what? Sir?"

"Look at the photographs, John. Try to recognise the symbols. They mean something. Two men have died for them. I'm going to the police station to get his diary. I'll need to find Van Coon's PA. If they were both killed for the same reason, somewhere they'll coincide."

Holmes was pulling on his coat and scarf. In a moment, he'd be gone. John got between him and the door. "Hey!" he said.

"I've given you your instructions, John, carry them out to the best of your ability."

"I need food," John barked. 

"What?"

"Food! Sir. I need to eat."

"The body is transport," Holmes said, and caught him by the shoulders and spun him round and stepped back and was out through the door, which slammed shut behind him and John could hear him running down the stairs and oh Jesus, he was hungry. John dropped to his knees and clutched at himself, off balance and hurting and near tears. He should go downstairs and beg Mrs Hudson for food. He'd planned to wait til tomorrow but he was empty and hurting inside and _the body is transport_ Sherlock Holmes wouldn't be back for hours.

The door opened. John wondered for a moment if he was dreaming. "There were only three sandwiches left in Speedy's," Holmes said. He put the bag down on the table and pulled John to his feet. His hands were very big and hard. "Eat one."

There were three sandwiches in the bag: no brandname, packeted in cardboard and plastic. One is beef, one is cheese, and one seems to be some kind of egg salad. He stared at Holmes. "If you eat two sandwiches, I'll be displeased. Eat all three and I'll punish you. Later." 

Holmes is gone. 

John takes out one sandwich - it turned out to be the egg salad - and to remove temptation, put the bag with the other two in the fridge. He eats it very slowly, chewing each mouthful thoroughly. It passes the time. He doesn't want to throw up. 

He stares at the yellow paint in the photographs. It remains meaningless. He's drifting and alone.

John wakes. It's still dark. He went to sleep with his head on the table. Holmes is talking, walking up and down the room and jabbering, "It's not what they saw; it's what they both brought back in those suitcases. Think about what Sebastian told us; about Van Coon - about how he stayed afloat in the market." John blinks: shivers: the room seems dark, foggy with chocolate and smashed eggs. He is, he isn't dreaming.

"What?"

"Keep up, John! He lost five million, made it back in a week. That's how he made such easy money. A guy like him - it would have been perfect."

"What?" John rubbed his eyes. 

"The body is transport, digestion slows the mind. You ate all three sandwiches and then you went to sleep and you cannot think. He was a businessman, making frequent trips to Asia. And Lukis was the same. A journalist writing about China. Both of them smuggled stuff out, and the Lucky Cat shop was their drop-off."

"And both of them were killed?" John said cautiously.

"Excellent observation, John, if a bit behind the times. We saw the marks on their feet, both of them belonged to the same tong, both of them went to the Lucky Cat shop, both of them were killed."

"You do know I wasn't there?"

"What?" Holmes stared at him.

"I was here. Looking at these photographs. Like you told me to. Eating _one_ sandwich. The others are in the fridge. Can I have another one now? Sir?"

"What?" Holmes went to the fridge, opened it, prodded at the bag. "Interesting. Why did they die?"

"How would I know? Would you like me to do an autopsy?"

"Would you _like_ to do an autopsy?" 

"Oh god yes," John said, with more enthusiasm than he should, from the gleam in Holmes's eye. 

"Curious. But you're not paying attention, John: we know how they died, they were shot in the head." Holmes tapped the right side of John's head with a hand clenched like a gun. "Single bullet right there." He grinned and winked, a movement like a rictus, not even meant to be human. John's hands clenched together in his lap. 

"It doesn't make sense," John said.

Holmes paused, his hand still lifted like a gun. 

"If they both turn up at the delivery shop and hand over the goods, why would someone kill them after they'd finished the job?"

After a moment, the rictus-grin on Holmes' face melted into a real smile. John saw it and his heart contracted with relief, even before Holmes dropped his hand and went back to pacing the room. "What if one of them was light-fingered?"

"How do you mean?

"Stole something; something from the hoard."

"Something went missing," John said, "And the killer didn't know which of them took it... so they both got it in the head?"

"We can’t crack this without Soo Lin Yao," Sherlock said. 

He was going: pulling on his coat and his scarf. He will be gone. Leaving John alone. 

"Can I come with you?"

"Don't be absurd. You'll stay here."

"Can I have another sandwich?"

Holmes paused. Glanced at his watch. "You can suck me off for both sandwiches," he said.

"Wnat?" 

"Do you need to hear me repeat it? Bring me to orgasm with your mouth and you can eat both the remaining sandwiches."

John swallowed. Well. A blow-job. That wasn't so bad. He had given blow-jobs before. 

A blow-job for food. He was a slave now. His owner could use him for sex, he just hadn't thought - 

He was a middle-aged short scarred limping doctor, he wasn't the sort - 

He was a slave now. His owner didn't need to find him attractive, just available. 

Spoiled rich kid playing detective. Spoiled rich kid having fun with his slave. If you give in to a bully - 

He doesn't need to be a bully. He owns - 

John swallowed. He knelt down, awkwardly, and realised that Holmes wasn't moving closer. John shuffled towards him on his knees. 

"Oh, get up," Holmes said. He sounded exasperated. "You could hardly look less convincing if you tried." With a swirl of his coat, without waiting for John to get up, he was gone again.

John went to bed. That is, he took his shoes off, lay down on the couch, wrapping himself up in the blanket, and tried to sleep. 

There were more photographs of the yellow paint symbols when he woke up. Holmes was back. It was daylight now. He hadn't had time to dream. "Always in pairs, John," Holmes said. "Numbers come with partners. Why did he paint it so near the tracks?"

"No idea," John said wearily. He sat up.

"Thousands of people pass by there every day." Holmes paused. Then he sounded triumphant. "Of course! He wants information. He's trying to communicate with his people in the underworld. Whatever was stolen, he wants it back. Why did he visit his sister? Why did he need her expertise?"

"Who?"

"Soo Lin Yao's brother! She's an expert in valuable antiquities. Ancient Chinese relics purchased on the black market. China's home to a thousand treasures hidden after Mao’s revolution."

Holmes had been talking almost as if to himself. but when he said "Here, John," it was a sudden command.

John got up and shuffled over to the table. Holmes pushed a pocket diary and a print-out of an appointments calendar at him. "Check the dates."

Holmes was looking up auctions on Crispians' website. He pointed at two Ming vases. "Arrived from China four days ago. Vendor doesn't give his name. Two undiscovered treasures from the East."

Understanding what Holmes wanted, John started looking. Both diary and calendar referenced regular trips to China and Hong Kong. "Van Coon arrived back from China exactly a month ago..." 

"A Chinese ceramic statue, sold four hundred thousand," Holmes said. "A month before that - a Chinese painting, half a million - "

John showed Holmes the page of Lukis's diary from two months ago. Another trip back from China.

"All of them from an anonymous source," Holmes said, with satisfaction. "They're stealing them back in China and one by one they’re feeding them into Britain."

John went on looking. It was quite impressive. Every single auction of Chinese antiquities from an anonymous source coincided with Lukis or Van Coon travelling to China. "Huh."

"So what if one of them got greedy when they were in China? What if one of them stole something?" Holmes was talking to himself again. "Both of them are dead, but the tong still wants whatever it was back."

There was a knock at the door. John got up to answer it. Mrs Hudson smiled at him. "Hello dear, haven't seen much of you! Are we collecting for charity, Sherlock?"

"What?"

"A young man's outside with crates of books."

Mrs Hudson's young man seemed to be a detective inspector: he had two uniformed police to carry plastic boxes full of books. Each box was labelled either "Van Coon" or "Lukis".

Holmes pointed at the yellow symbols. Next to each one he had written a number. "The numbers are references."

"To books?" John asked.

"To one specific book: to specific pages and specific words on those pages."

"Right, so, fifteen and one: that means...."

"Turn to page fifteen and it's the first word you read."

"And the message is...?"

"Depends on the book," Holmes said. "That's the cunning of the book code. Has to be one that they both owned."

"Okay, right, well, this shouldn't take too long, should it?" From the crates, Van Coon had fewer books than Lukis. "Can I get a sandwich first, sir?"

"We found these, at the museum," the detective inspector said. He was holding out a clear evidence bag to Sherlock with photos of the yellow symbols. "Is this your writing?"

Holmes waved what John decided to assume was permission, and he went to the fridge to get out another sandwich. Mrs Hudson was standing behind him when he turned. "Silly man," she whispered, "I told him he should get some food in! Two sandwiches, that's not enough for you!"

"Some silence right now would be marvellous," Holmes said.

He was unloading a crate of Lukis's books, John saw. 

John started unloading Van Coon's, lining them in rough alphabetical order across the floor. The three police left. John finished the sandwich. This one was cold beef. Holmes picked up the crate of Lukis's books and started comparing each one to the line of Van Coon's books. He picked up an Iain Banks novel and flipped it open.

"Cigarette," he said, sounding exasperated. He put both books down on the desk. 

He found another. "Imagine."

They found a few dozen books both men owned, mostly popular bestsellers bought in airports: none of them, to Holmes, seemed to have a promising message, though he tried them all.

As a day of being a slave, it wasn't bad. There was actual company, even if it was Holmes. There was lunch, because Mrs Hudson brought up some food - enough for both of them and Holmes didn't eat any. There was work to do that didn't involve trying to clean the flat without cleaning products. And even though Holmes talked to himself quite a lot, he was interesting to listen to.

John repacked the books and ate the third sandwich and brushed his teeth and thought about laundry. Holmes had seventeen possible messages from the matching books, none of which looked that probable to John. Holmes hadn't suggested another blowjob. He'd barely spoken to John since.

Holmes was using his laptop again. He had his credit card out.

Then he got up from the table and in two steps, pinned John against the wall. He was much taller than John and his hands were big on John's shoulders. John tried not to tense up. Holmes had moved slowly enough that John had time not to react on instinct, and he knew consciously that fighting back would be the worst thing he could do to himself. 

"I'm going to take you out tonight," Holmes said. "We're going to the circus."

John stared up at him, and licked his lips. He was sure he had just hallucinated that.

"Do you understand what I just said to you?" Holmes asked.

"I thought you said you were going to take me to the circus," John said. To his surprise, Holmes only nodded.

"It's a shot in the dark. Good one, though. The poster advertising them was near some of the code. I've booked two seats, you're going to ensure it's not obvious when I leave to have a look round. Is that clear, John? I suppose you'll take the opportunity to get in touch with my brother, but if you do anything to interfere with the case, I will beat you to within an inch of your life, and don't think my brother will help you, because he won't."

\---------------

The Yellow Dragon Circus had decorated the building with red Chinese lanterns. Holmes shoved John towards the box office.

"Hi," John said, to the manager. This felt entirely weird. "I have two tickets reserved for tonight."

"And what's the name?"

"Holmes," John said. He produced the wallet that Holmes had given him, and showed the bank card, discovering as he did so that there was cash in the wallet, too. The manager handed him the tickets. An ordinary, commonplace transaction. John had checked in the mirror before they went out: the jersey covered the collar. He looked rumpled, but it wasn't too evident that he'd been sleeping in his clothes. 

The stairs up to the auditorium were dark: Holmes appeared at his elbow about halfway up. The circus wasn't a circus according to John's understanding: the seats had been removed, and the spectators stood around a circle of candles. John went to the point on the circle where Holmes pushed him. "Stand there. Look like I'm talking to you," Holmes said quietly. 

"How do I do that - " John started, in a whisper, and Holmes jabbed him hard in the ribs. 

"I said _listen_ ," Holmes said in his ear, and started talking. John looked ahead at the circle of candles, and nodded, and smiled, and tried to act interested. 

It was actually interesting. It was definitely more interesting than sitting on the sofa wrapped in a tobacco-smelling blanket wondering where Holmes had got to. Even if the performance was more art than circus, it was almost like being out for the evening by choice, with a friend. Almost.

"....classic Chinese escapology act," Holmes was saying. "The crossbow's on a delicate string. The warrior has to escape his bonds before it fires. She splits the sandbag; the sand pours out; gradually the weight lowers into the bowl."

Then Holmes fell silent. The performer dressed in armour was struggling with his bonds. John watched. Of course the man was going to get loose in time: John found himself unable to get worked up about it. He could feel the tension in the audience, knew that the others - the free people - were getting worked up into an excited frenzy. He wasn't able to. Even Holmes could....

No. Holmes had gone. John stepped sideways a little, into the space where Holmes should have been and wasn't, and then stepped back again, keeping his eyes fixed on the performance inside the circle. He felt for the wallet Holmes had given him, and without looking, checked the cash with his fingers. Two notes and, he thought, both of them twenties. Forty pounds cash, if he was right, and a bank card - not one he could use, but useful for ID if anyone challenged him. 

He could get out of here. Forty pounds wasn't much, but it was more than he'd had before. He could get out. The thought filled him with more excitement than a circus performance. 

John stood there and watched the rest of the performance without really seeing it. Holmes never returned. As the circle of people broke up and started heading to the exit, John slid into the middle of a group, all talking excitedly, and walked down the stairs with them, listening, nodding, trying to appear part of the group. They cast him an odd glance or two as he walked out of the theater with them, and down the street: they were heading towards the nearest Tube station. Holmes had taken him here by taxi. How far out of London could he get before the Tube stopped running?

And what good would it do him? John kept going without a hitch in his step, but the thought was a blow. He was out, alone, with money in his pocket, this was a chance that might never come again - 

But he couldn't get away. He'd need to be able to get his collar off. He'd need more money than forty pounds. He'd need to have a plan of where he was going. He was more likely to make a chance for himself later if he went back to his owner now. 

But he couldn't endure going back to the cold and the hunger and the loneliness. Could not bear it. _Could not_.

The group of people he was walking with had almost reached the Tube station and still John didn't know what he was going to do, when a black car with tinted windows rolled up to the sidewalk a few feet ahead and came to a halt. The door opened. A young woman with a Blackberry got out and stepped in front of him, cutting him from the group as neatly as a dog cuts a sheep from the flock. John stood still, jaw dropping. He knew her.

"Get into the car," she told him.

John swallowed, and got in. The tall brother pointed at the floor. John knelt. The woman with the Blackberry sat down next to the tall brother, and ignored him.

"Good evening, John. Did my brother let you off the leash for the evening?"

"He took me to the circus," John said. "He left me there. I was going back to Baker Street." 

"My brother has always been careless with my belongings," the tall brother said calmly. "Did you know that slaves aren't allowed to use the London Underground unaccompanied? There is a detector system that registers collars: you would have been caged until TfL could locate your owner."

"I didn't know."

"Curious. Sherlock undoubtedly knows that. Unless he's deleted it. Well." The tall brother smiled at him. "Tell me everything my brother has done since I saw you last."

\---------------

"Run along," the tall brother said.

John got out of the car, feeling shaky and drained. He rang the doorbell. Behind him, he heard the car drive away. 

The door opened. Mrs Hudson beamed at him. "There you are, dear. Sherlock's not long back. You go right up."

"Oh," John said, and nodded. He set himself wearily to climb the stairs.

Holmes was sprawled on the sofa. He looked up abruptly as John came in. "Five minutes late. Mycroft is slipping."

"What?"

"It was obvious that you'd take the opportunity to get in touch with my brother. Eventually Mycroft will realise that I don't intend to let you see anything important about my life and take you off this placement. In the meantime, I hope you let him know that as you're not my slave, not a slave in any sense of the word, I don't intend to feed or clothe you. If he must plant an undercover agent on me he can provide you with whatever you need or you can do without, I don't care. How did he persuade you to take on this kind of role? You do realise you're very vulnerable to him. Your collar is registered legally, you have a complete slave record set up coded to your chip, you'll find it very difficult to prove you're _not_ a slave even though it's obvious to anyone with any capacity for observation at all that you are not and never have been enslaved." Holmes stood up. He hadn't even taken off his coat. He had spoken so fast there was no possibility of interrupting. 

John swallowed. "Wait - "

"No time, John. I expected Mycroft to deliver you here five minutes ago."

"Where are you going?"

"To the museum; to the restoration room." He grimaced in exasperation. "I must have been staring right at it!"

"At - at what?"

"Don't be tedious, John! At the book – the key to cracking the cipher!"

"What?" 

Holmes was gone. John sat down and hugged himself, breathing, trying to stave off a panic attack. Holmes would be back in an hour or twenty-four hours, there was no food, he'd said he didn't intend to feed John, he couldn't let John starve, someone would stop him, there was nobody to stop him - 

There was a flyer for a Chinese restaurant, folded and used as a bookmark, in the kitchen garbage, right at the top. John picked it up. He had Sherlock's bank card. Probably by the time Sherlock got a bank statement, he'd never notice one order of Chinese food from a restaurant he must use regularly.

\---------------

"Sorry to keep you," John said. He had found, piecemeal, a handful of change for a tip. The only other money he had was two twenty pound notes. 

"Do you have it?" the delivery man said.

"What?"

"Do you have the treasure?"

"I don’t understand," John said, bewildered, and then the ceiling fell on him.

When John woke, he was sitting in a hard chair. A metal chair. He was tied to the metal chair. His head hurt. The only light came from a distance, a red flickering flame.

"A book is like a magic garden carried in your pocket," the woman said. The ringmaster at the circus. He was at the circus. He wasn't at the circus - the smell was wrong, musty-damp, almost outdoors, even though he was under a roof. There was the smell of burning.

"Chinese proverb, Mister Holmes." 

"I'm... I'm not Sherlock Holmes."

The woman smiled at him. She didn't look friendly. "Forgive me if I do not take your word for it." Her hand was hard, rummaging at his pockets without any gentleness. It hurt. She got the wallet out. "Debit card, name of S. Holmes."

"Yes," John said. "That's not actually mine. He... lent that to me."

"Tickets from the theater," the woman said, "collected by you, name of Holmes."

"Yes, okay ..." John swallowed. "I realise what this looks like, but I'm not him."

The woman was carrying a gun. She pointed it at his head. John twitched. He'd begged for death, rather than life in the age. This seemed like such a stupid way to go: killed in mistake for Holmes. 

"I am Shan," the woman said.

"Oh." John nodded. "You're Shan. Uh - pleased to meet you?"

"Three times we tried to kill you and your companion, Mister Holmes. What does it tell you when an assassin cannot shoot straight?"

"Okay, not that pleased to meet you," John muttered. He turned his head away. He could feel the gun press against his head. He heard the trigger move under her hand. He jerked, trying instinctively to get away from the death in her hand, horrified at himself - he'd wanted to die, he should have been able to die - 

The gun clicked. It was empty. The woman whispered in his ear "It tells you that they're not really trying."

She moved around to stand in front of him. John jerked his head again, looking away, but he could hear her loading the gun. Hear her cocking the trigger. Feel it heavy against his head. "Not empty now," she said.

"Okay," John whispered. 

"If we wanted to kill you, Mister Holmes, we would have done it by now. We just wanted to make you inquisitive. Do you have it?"

"Do I have what?" John asked.

"The treasure," Shan said.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I would prefer to make certain."

"Sorry," John said. "I’m sorry. I'm not Holmes. I don't know anything."

"Where's the hairpin?"

"What?"

"The Empress pin valued at nine million sterling. We already had a buyer in the West; and then one of our people was greedy. He took it, brought it back to London and you, Mister Holmes, have been searching." She moved the pistol down. She wasn't pointing at his head any more. His hands were tied together and fastened to the base of the chair. His ankles were tied together and fastened to the base of the chair. She touched the gun to one knee, then the other. "Left or right?"

"Please. Please, listen to me. I'm not ... I'm not Sherlock Holmes. You have to believe me. I haven’t found whatever it is you’re looking for." John tilted his head back. The gun was a small pistol, but a bullet at close range would do permanent damage to his knees, he'd bleed out without immediate care, he'd die here. 

If he told her he was Holmes' slave?

She might kill him quickly. Or shoot him to cripple and then let him die. She might not believe him. Holmes' hadn't. 

"I'm not Sherlock Holmes!" John said loudly.

"I don't believe you," Shan said.

"You should, you know," an echoey baritone said at a distance. "Sherlock Holmes is nothing at all like him."

Shan lifted her gun.

"That's a semi-automatic," the voice said. "If you fire it, the bullet will travel at over a thousand metres per second."

"Well...?" Shan asked.

"Well," the voice answered, "the radius curvature of these walls is nearly four metres. If you miss, the bullet will ricochet. Could hit anyone. Might even bounce off the tunnel and hit you."

"That's Sherlock Holmes," John muttered to Shan. "Haven't known him very long... but that's him all right."

Then, suddenly, everything seemed to happen at once. Someone knocked over the brazier of burning rubbish that was providing the only light. There was a thud and a clang as someone hit someone else with a metal bar. John saw Shan lifting her gun again and jerked the chair hard, overbalancing it, as Shan fired. He landed badly, and the chair hurt, and everything over his head was darkness and gunfire. 

Then there was silence. Someone came up to the chair, and moved round so that John could see his feet. Holmes.

"It's all right," Holmes said. "It's over now." He moved again, to get a better angle, John realised, and John could feel his hands tugging at the ropes. "I've called the police, they'll be here shortly."

They were. The detective inspector who'd visited with the books was there. John went stumbling out into the light of the police cars and froze. He remembered that he should be walking with a cane. A heavy, long arm closed round his shoulders and held him up, an apparently-friendly gesture.

"We'll just slip off," Holmes told the police officer. "No need to mention us in your report."

"Mister Holmes..." 

"I have high hopes for you, Inspector. A glittering career."

"I go where you point me," the police officer said. 

Holmes turned around, tugging John with him, and called over his shoulder "Exactly!"

There was a taxi. Holmes put John in it and followed him. "221 Baker Street," he told the cabby.

"You translated the message," John said, blearily.

"Yes. 'Nine million for jade pin. Dragon den, black Tramway.' That's how I knew where to find you."

"Mmm," John said. He felt dazed. He had / had not wanted to die. He felt life would be so much easier if he had wanted to die. If Shan had killed him. 

"A message; what they were trying to reclaim. An instruction to all their London operatives."

"A jade pin?"

"Worth nine million pounds. Bring it to the Tramway, their London hideout."

"Hang on: a hairpin worth nine million pounds?"

"Apparently."

"Why so much?"

"Depends who owned it," Holmes said.

"They called it the Empress pin," John remembered.

"Yes," Holmes said. "Eddie Van Coon was the thief. He stole the treasure when he was in China."

"How d'you know it was Van Coon, not Lukis? Even the killer didn’t know that."

Holmes sounded faintly, grimly smug. "Because of the soap."

 

\---------------

John woke. He vaguely remembered Holmes steering him across the room and dropping him on the sofa. He didn't remember the blanket, or his shoes being removed, but he was lying under the orange blanket and his shoes were off.

Holmes appeared, bleary-eyed, clad in a blue dressing-gown, and wandered across the room to the kitchen. There was a pause - long enough for someone to make tea, if there was any tea in the kitchen - and Holmes swore. He came lounging back to the sitting room, and sat down in the armchair, curled up crookedly with his chin practically on his knees.

"Bored," he said.

John sat up. He wanted tea, or even coffee, and there would be none.

"Why are you doing this for Mycroft?"

"What did your last slave die of?" John asked. 

"He fell off a roof," Holmes said. "Mycroft knows that. Oh. I didn't push him, if that's what you were wondering."

"No," John said. "I was wondering - last night - if your other slaves got killed when someone mistook them for you."

Holmes stared at him. "I don't know," he said finally, precisely. "It seems improbable. None of them looked anything like me. No more than you do."

"Last night," John said. He felt like an idiot saying this, but Holmes was regarding him with a calm, thoughtful air. "You seemed to think this was some kind of con job, that I'm some kind of undercover agent. I'm not. I really am a slave. Your brother bought me."

"You don't react like a slave," Holmes observed. "I provoked you three times. Each time I could see you consciously decide not to attack me. You didn't react like a slave, You weren't afraid you'd displeased me, you were _angry_ with me."

"Does that surprise you?"

"Yes," Holmes said. "I've owned slaves. At least one of them detested me. Even she didn't dare get angry with me."

"About a week ago I was still in a military hospital," John said. "I got enslaved, put in a cage, your brother bought me. I don't know a thing about being a slave, If I'm not behaving right, I'm sorry, but - " He had been about to apologize, but Holmes interrupted.

"Of course. That would be Mycroft's cover story for you. Ingenious. You're supposedly a slave but you've had no training, so you can fight back. He's convinced my other slaves were killed on purpose."

"Were they?"

"I don't know," Holmes said, still precisely. "It seems probable. I don't plan to let you out of the apartment, though.""

"Or feed me?"

"Mrs Hudson seems determined to make sure we both eat. There's some leftover Chinese carry-out on the kitchen counter."

John hesitated. "I ordered that. With your bank card."

"Ingenious," Holmes said.

"You're not angry?" John asked, after a short pause.

"Self-evidently not."

"What _did_ your other slaves die of?"

"Carl drowned, Kitty was poisoned, Angelo was hit by a car, Jim fell off the roof of Barts hospital."

The flat recital made John blink. 

"Carl died when I was twelve, Kitty when I was eighteen, Angelo was killed two years ago, Jim fell six months ago. Nobody except myself sees any connection between the four deaths other than they all belonged to me at the time they were killed. Carl's death was supposed to be an accident, Kitty was assumed to have killed herself, Angelo was a careless hit-and-run driver. Jim is supposed to have been a suicide. Anyone who owned two slaves who committed suicide can be banned for life from owning another slave."

"I don't plan to kill myself," John said. 

Holmes' mouth twitched. He said only "You've forgotten to call me 'sir'."

"Sorry, sir," John said, feeling slapped.

"I prefer 'Sherlock'," Holmes said. "I already told you that." He stood up. "Mrs Hudson goes to the supermarket on Mondays. You can give her a shopping list."

His phone beeped. Holmes pulled it out and looked at the screen. "Did you hate the idea of giving me a blow-job for food, or because I own you?" He glanced at John, and caught his eye. "Something of both," he concluded. "I need to go to the bank. Dimmock will be over soon to collect the books. Ask Mrs Hudson to give you a cup of tea. Try not to get killed while I'm gone."

 

_Thanks so much for all the comments and kudos! Well, there will be at least one more story - "The Great Game" to go._


	3. Tea and sympathy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock has an unusual experience and John finally has a cup of tea.

The business with the Chinese circus and the dead smugglers had ended on Friday, and John had been looking forward to Monday and Mrs Hudson's trip to the supermarket as he had once, as a free man, looked forward to Christmas.

(Christmas last year in a military hospital had been painful, dreary, and full of dread: he had known that the days were sliding toward the time he'd be discharged into slavery. Christmas in Afghanistan, year before last, had been strangely peaceful.)

Holmes had ignored him. That was fine. Mrs Hudson had complained cheerfully about Sherlock's little ways but agreed to take a bag of laundry to the launderette on Monday, or even two, if John sorted it. On Monday morning, as soon as Holmes disappeared down the stairs in his flashy black coat and trailing blue scarf, John nipped into his bedroom. 

Holmes had unpacked for himself: there were posters up on the walls - a sun-faded copy of the Periodic Table, a martial-arts certificate, some Wanted posters, mostly from years ago - and stacks of books, piled according to some kind of system (John could guess that much) all around the walls. There was also, which John had noted some days earlier when Holmes sent him in to collect his laptop and save himself actually _walking_ the few yards, a pile of clothing under the window: a mixed bag of underwear, socks, shirts, jackets and trousers. 

Holmes didn't believe John was a slave because he didn't act like one. Fine. John was going to prove it to him: clean laundry, clean apartment, tea on demand, meals when wanted. He couldn't get out of this, he didn't trust the tall brother, but considering all the possible options of his life as a slave, this wasn't _bad_. The demand for a blow-job seemed to have been intended as an experiment in provocation: Holmes had shown no interest in John, sexual or otherwise: he spent days at a time ignoring John or away from home, and if there were food supplies in the flat that would become almost tolerable.

The majority of Holmes' clothing turned out to have tags saying "dry clean only". John sorted out what just seemed to need regular washing, made up two bags of laundry, and took them down to Mrs Hudson, with his shopping list. Then he went back upstairs and sat down on the couch and waited. He expected not to see Holmes again until well after dark, if not til the next day, and when he heard the familiar step running up the stairs he was hit with a feeling of disappointment so great he could have cried. 

(Low blood sugar, he reminded himself. Low blood sugar. You'll be better when you've eaten.)

"John, stay out of my sock index," Holmes snapped. 

John blinked. He had been looking forward to hours alone with freshly-made cups of tea, slices of toast, gradually re-accustoming his abused digestive system to the idea of regular food. He was suffering under a sense of crushing disappointment: when Holmes was in the flat, it was more interesting, but he didn't feel the need for any excitement right now: mundane hours alone, just himself and toast and tea, were vanishing like a longed-for dream.

But, sock index?

"I didn't touch your ... sock index," he said, trying to keep his voice inexpressive. 

"Mrs Hudson told me you'd sent two bags of washing to that launderette run by the Greek with two wives, both of whom have a drinking problem, and who are probably going to find out about each other when they discover neither of them have been invited to her birthday party next week. Understandable - the Greek's got two sons with her ex-husband that neither of her wives know about. My wardrobe is arranged on an exact system, I can find anything I need in seconds, and I don't want an ignorant little man planted on me by my damnable brother messing around in it." He bent over John, and added at a bark, " _Stay out._ "

Holmes swept past into his bedroom and John stayed absolutely still. Okay, fine, he told himself fiercely, okay, _fine_. He supposed he'd have to apologize. If he'd trespassed into a roommate's bedroom without asking his permission and offended him, he'd apologize like a shot. It was knowing he'd _have_ to, that a slave who'd displeased his owner could expect to have to grovel, that was making him want to die.

Stop that, he told himself. You _don't_ want to die. You want to live. You really do want to stay alive.

A few minutes later, Holmes swept out again. "Call the dry cleaner," he said. 

"Who?" John asked.

"The one I always use. The card's under the skull."

John hated touching the skull. He picked it up reluctantly. There was nothing underneath but dusty mantelpiece. "No, it's not."

Holmes paused. "Oh, yes, that was Montague Street. Well, the card must have been packed when I moved. You'll just have to find it. Call to have them collect, the bills get sent to my brother."

There had been a bunch of business cards: John had put them all together in one of the kitchen drawers. He found the dry-cleaner and handed it to Holmes, who stared at it, and him.

"I said call the dry-cleaner, John, are you deaf as well as stupid?"

"I can't call, sir, I don't have a phone."

"Strip," Holmes said.

John stared at him for moment. Then realised, yes, Holmes really had said that, and with futile slowness, he began to take off his clothes. Holmes stood there watching him, just watching, with indifferent cold eyes. John began to shiver. He tugged his trousers down, toed off his shoes, and finally slid off his boxers, feeling naked and unattractive as a plucked chicken. 

"Stand there, with your legs wide apart, and put your hands on the back of your head," Holmes instructed. He paused, looking at John's shoulder, faintly interested. "You were shot at fairly close range by a 7.62mm assault rifle about six months ago. What range of motion do you have left in your arm?"

"Almost complete," John said, keeping his eyes fixed on the wall across the room. 

"How long do you think you can hold this position?"

John swallowed. "Probably about twenty minutes, sir?"

"Let's see if you can manage half an hour. Keep your hands on your head, and do deep knee-bends, one a minute. Don't move your head."

Deep knee bends, legs spread, separated his buttocks and exposed his anus: John had supposed this was a prelude to sexual assault, but Holmes didn't come near him, though any delay in performing a knee-bend got a snapped "Keep moving, John!" from Holmes, who was moving around the room out of John's line of sight. 

"Nearly done, John," Holmes said finally, directly behind him. John heard, unmistakable, the sound of latex gloves being snapped on. He shuddered and nearly fell and Holmes caught him by the shoulder. "Bend over. Spread your legs. Hands on your knees."

Holmes entered him with long, latex-covered fingers, pressing deep inside. He didn't use lube, but he was surprisingly gentle: John swallowed and clenched his eyes shut and breathed through his nose. Holmes's fingers pushed and spread. John tried not to whimper. 

"Lie down on the floor, on your stomach, with your arms and legs spread. Stay there til I tell you to get up."

John dropped to his hands and knees and lay flat. His anus felt widened and opened, gently violated in preparation for a cock, and he was expecting to feel Holmes' weight descend on him, but the man moved away. 

Moved away. To the bathroom. To get lube. Obviously. John lay still with his face turned away from the bathroom door, his cheek pressing into the rough carpet. Holmes was gone for a little while. John didn't move. He was not going to cry, not going to whimper, not going to make a sound, he couldn't stop Holmes, he couldn't stop anything, he was so ruddy _helpless_....

The steps came back. John set his teeth. Holmes said "Get up and get dressed, John."

The clothing John had taken off lay in a scattered pile, not as he had left it. Holmes shrugged his coat off, hung it up, moved over to the couch, and sat down. John was shuddering, cold all through. Holmes had changed his mind. Couldn't find the lube, lost interest, couldn't get aroused by John... or the stripping and finger-fucking had been a punishment, Holmes had never meant to fuck him at all.

"Come here," Holmes said, as if from a long way off, and John tried to answer him but all that came out was a strangled whimper and his eyes were weeping hot tears and the sound of traffic was blurring with the sound of distant mortar-fire.

"Are you having a panic attack?" Holmes's voice was neutral, interested, not at all concerned. "You really do have PTSD."

John came to himself after a time he could not measure. He had been crying: his face and the carpet under his face was wet. He felt as weak and as useless as a discarded bit of rag. Holmes was still sitting on the couch, eyeing him with a curious look.

"Can you get up now?" Holmes asked. 

John supposed he could. He tried, staggered, got himself to his feet, and stood, feeling wobbly. 

Holmes stood up. John lurched backward. 

"Come here," Holmes said. He pointed at the couch. "Come here and sit or lie down, whichever suits you better. Then don't move."

Holmes seemed as if deliberately to move out of John's way: when John sat down on the couch, Holmes wasn't there. 

He had gone out again, John realised, sitting dully on the couch with his hands tucked between his knees. His coat and scarf were still hanging up, but he might still not be back for hours. 

But a minute or so later, John heard him running up the stairs again, and Holmes came in, carrying four plastic supermarket bags. He glanced over at John and went into the kitchen, putting the bags down on the table and rummaging in them. 

"How do you take your tea, John?" he called.

John thought, briefly, that he was hallucinating again. He swallowed and licked his lips and managed to croak "Milk, no sugar." After a moment he added, "Thank you."

Holmes came back with two mugs of tea. He sat down in the nearest armchair, and held out one of the mugs. 

After a moment, a long moment, John reached out to take it in both of his hands: it was hot. He looked at the brown liquid and tried a mouthful, not altogether caring what it might be.

Tea. With milk. It was the first cup of tea John had had in days, and it tasted unbelievably good to him. He sat on the couch and drank the tea and stared at Holmes, who was contemplating the wall behind the couch with a cold and vague expression. John finished the tea and sat and looked at Holmes, still nursing his mug, supposing he should get up and wash the mug and unpack the groceries, but unable to think of properly moving.

Holmes said, after a few minutes, "I have to apologize. I was wrong."

John dropped the mug. It didn't break. He stared at it, lying on its side on the carpet with its handle nestling into the tufts and its mouth gaping open, and then he looked up at Holmes. "What?"

Holmes grimaced. "You heard me perfectly, I'm not saying it again."

"If you were an agent, you would have concealed some means of contacting my brother or at least calling for help. I am suspected of killing two of my previous slaves, I'm a high-functioning sociopath, and this is not a deep cover situation. Mycroft gifted you to me. I know you haven't left the flat unless accompanied by me. I know the only time my brother has visited since he gave you to me, it was to deliver you after the circus with the smugglers. And he didn't enter the apartment and you didn't leave anything outside: you came directly in. I have searched everywhere you have been, everywhere you could possibly have gone, I have given you ample opportunity to conceal a device somewhere in this flat, but there's none. You have a metal collar welded on and a chip below your left shoulderblade. You don't walk, talk, move, or act like a slave, but you _are_ chattel, and I've been misjudging the situation. And you."

"Oh," John said. He looked down at the mug again, lying helplessly on the floor. He couldn't think of anything to say. "Can I unpack the shopping?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," Holmes said. He leaned back in the chair and looked as if he might be going to sleep.

John picked up the mug and went across to the sink. He rinsed the mug out and turned to the groceries on the table. The checker had sorted all the frozen food into one bag, and it was sweating, but not defrosting yet, at least John hoped not. There was a bag with cleaning materials, too, and a couple of loaves of bread, eggs and cheese, cans of beans, and even some fresh vegetables. Food for a week. Ordinary, commonplace meals, within his power to make. He could cook and clean and make himself cups of tea. The box of teabags and the bottle of milk stood open on the counter. John was about to put it into the fridge when his left hand started trembling uncontrollably and he tucked it under his right arm and turned and Holmes was standing right behind him.

"Do you have to do that!" John snapped.

"Do what?" Holmes said. "Your hand started shaking. Mycroft was right; it's not stress that causes it. I put you through intense stress, and not only did your left hand remain as steady as your right, you entirely forgot to limp."

John stared down at his legs, realizing only then that he couldn't even remember when he had last felt the gnawing, disabling pain in his thigh.

Holmes picked up the milk and put it into the fridge. "Are you really going to eat this much food in a week?" he asked in plain curiosity.

It didn't look excessive to John. "It's for you, too."

"Fuel," Holmes said dismissively. "Eating's boring. Digestion slows the mind."

"You need to eat."

"No, you need to eat, I need to think."

"Sherlock," John said.

Holmes turned back to him, raising his eyebrows. "Good, you remembered," he said, sounding almost as patronizing as his brother.

"Are you going to punish me for going into your room?"

"Do you want me to punish you?"

"No," John said. He thought of riding crops. " _God_ no. I won't go in there again. I'm sorry. I promise. I just - "

"Stay out of my wardrobe and my sock index. Don't disturb my library. Don't touch my experiments. Don't interrupt me when I'm thinking. Don't touch my violin. Don't leave the flat. Don't let anyone kill you." Holmes smiled: a deliberate cold closed-mouth grin. It might have been intended to be reassuring. "Do as you're told and we'll get along just fine, John." 

end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May still do The Great Game, but as a separate story. There's so much that happens in the Game that I thought this should just get tied up now, so to speak.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, there will probably be more of this, assuming I haven't already put everyone off! Was just wondering what it would be like for poor John if he really did have no idea where the body parts in the fridge come from, and things just grew from there.


End file.
